


The Hour For Loving

by solarfemm



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 20th Century, Age Difference, Alternate Timeline, Cold War, Depression, Disabled Character, Do not post to another site, F/M, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Kissing, Letters, M/M, Multi, Outing, Panic Attacks, Pining, Red Room (Marvel), References to Torture, References to homophobic violence, Resolved Romantic Tension, Russia, September 11 Attacks, Slow Burn, Vegetarianism, WWII, femicide (Red Room), heavy suicidal ideation and references to suicide, infanticide (Red Room), like really slow burn, no seriously it has a happy ending, non-explicit sex scenes, one use of derogatory word for sex workers, referenced AIDS crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 82,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28448259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarfemm/pseuds/solarfemm
Summary: Bucky makes it home from the war in 1943. Steve doesn't."Rarely the man to love coincides with the hour for loving." -Tess of the D'Ubervilles
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/OMC, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, eventual Nat/Steve, eventual Sam/Steve, referenced Peggy/Steve
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	1. 1943

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Long Winter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1799623) by [dropdeaddream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropdeaddream/pseuds/dropdeaddream), [WhatAreFears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatAreFears/pseuds/WhatAreFears). 



> **Content warnings**
> 
> \- Period-typical homophobia: I’ve refrained from using slurs where I can because I just don’t like them and it’s my fic I can do what I want. But the words I do use—queer (which btw I don’t consider a slur, I’m a proud member of the queer community), lesbian, gay, bisexual, homo/homosexual—are period typical (I use “homo” for myself but I understand how that and “queers” have been used as slurs, however in this fic they are reclaimed slurs). However, I have used some words that would be considered slurs now but give context to the kinds of relationships and hierarchy that existed in the queer world, as well as some that are context-specific and typical for the period but would be considered slurs now. Rest assured I have not dropped a hard F-bomb. See the reference list (last chapter) for more fantastic and interesting information! For almost everything else, I’ve sacrificed accuracy for being politically correct, which is my wont.
> 
> \- There is heavy Bucky Barnes/OMCs (especially in Chapter 4) but the endgame is Steve/Bucky
> 
> You can find me at tumblr and twitter @solarfemm, and check out my THFL tag on tumblr (solarfemm.tumblr.com/tagged/thfl).
> 
> This is my love letter to NEC, six and a half years later.

Odysseus returned from the harrowed battlefields of the Trojan War with a question on his lips: “Who are these people whose land I have come home to?” Strolling through the streets of Brooklyn, with a head full of war and missing an arm, Bucky wonders the same thing. He sees people he knows but they’ve grown wearier in the last five months, as though time has aged them years. Alice and Tommy cling onto his intact arm and his pants leg as his father leads them back to his house. The streets are mostly devoid of men—the ones that are still alive are fighting in Europe and Africa, where Bucky would be, should be still; and the ones who aren’t, well. Bucky’s seen their bodies. He’s seen the shock on their faces, their blood drip from their wounds, their ashes settle to the ground as whatever the fuck the Hydra weapons were blasted them right off this earth. Bucky’s a damn lucky sonofabitch, he always did think so, and now he’s got one arm to prove it, one fist to fight anyone who thinks he’s not worth the blood he spilled on the battlefield losing the other.

“Bucky,” Alice says, tugging at his pants. According to their mother, she’s too old to still be sucking on her thumb, but Bucky doesn’t begrudge her this act of innocence. “What happened to your arm? Dad didn’t tell us it’s gone.”

“I threw it at a Kraut,” Bucky says, bumping her ever so gently with his hip. “Didn’t know what hit him.”

The line of his father’s shoulders as they traipse up to State Street says how disappointed he is. Bucky didn’t expect a surprise party, but his father never wanted him to fight to begin with, and the fact that he’s taking Bucky’s injury and subsequent dismissal from the Army to heart shows Bucky how much he means to George Barnes. He’s nothing more than the bones he’s missing, and maybe George might shed a tear if he came home in a pine box. But the bastard never shed one in all the 26 years Bucky’s been alive, so why should he start now? 

Alice and Tommy don’t let off him until they’re all inside the house and their mother comes bursting into the hallway to hug Bucky tight to her chest. 

“You came home,” she says, sobbing into Bucky’s neck, and he disentangles his hand from Tommy’s to put around his mother. Alice and Tommy start chasing each other, and if Becca were still here roasting potatoes and chicken in the oven, it would almost be a scene from his childhood. He thinks about that for a second and decides, no, not really, not at all. “I knew you would, but gosh, I was scared.”

“Hey, ma,” Bucky says, rubbing his palm up and down her spine. She smells like the lemon cleaner she uses to wash the dishes, and her hands are pruney when they take Bucky’s. The whole house smells of disinfectant, as though Winifred has been taking her fears out on the grit between the kitchen tiles again. “I could tell how much you worried, and came back as soon as I could.”

She ushers him into the dining room like she used to when Bucky and Steve would come over for Sunday supper, and it is a Sunday right now, and the weight of Steve’s absence feels like a gorilla sitting on his chest, beating the breath out of him with its fists. Winifred makes small talk and cuts up Bucky’s food, as though she always has, while his father sits silently, stonily, at the head of the table.

“You’ll need to see the Joneses,” his mother says, and Bucky nods, spearing potato on his fork and dipping it into the gravy on his plate. But god, he hasn’t had a decent meal in months, and it’s as welcome as anything. Even his father’s foul mood can’t sour the elation he feels at his mother’s cooking. “And your sister is coming up from Shelbyville to see you. She couldn’t wait once she heard you were being discharged. Oh, to have my children under one roof again. It’s been so long.”

“Years,” Bucky says. He drops his fork, picks his chicken leg up with his hand and bites into it with relish, juices dripping down his chin. Alice and Tommy giggle and throw peas at each other. Their mother is so happy to see him she doesn’t even comment on it, glowing at him, touching his arm and pinching his cheek. He just smiles with a mouth full of chicken. 

It feels good to be home.

* * *

The Joneses welcome him into their home with hugs. He’s not sure exactly why he’s here, but knowing his mother it has something to do with money, which is a taboo subject in the Barnes household. Peter and Anne have aged years in months too, but he reassures them that the last he saw of their son Rudy, like most of the 107th Infantry, he was in perfect health, thanks to Captain America.

Valerie looks as lovely as ever, blushing when Bucky kisses her hand. She sets out a tray of homemade biscuits and sweet tea, family recipes passed through the generations, and sits up straight while Bucky talks to her parents. They’ve made a life for themselves after moving from Louisiana ten years ago, and they’ve always kept Bucky’s parents company.

“We sent CARE packages when we could, bought bonds, that kind of thing. We hope it got to you out there.”

Bucky nods. “It helps more than you know.” He got packages from his parents in the four months between when he reached Casablanca and the Battle of Azzano, cigarettes that kept his cravings at bay, food that kept his belly full and made the time between battles bearable, the endless waiting for something to happen, for a shell to explode or for the Germans to invade. Hell wasn’t just what was waiting for them beyond baselines, but what was happening in their own heads. “The way the men were telling it, packages and letters from home are getting most of them through.”

“How are your parents doing now?” Anne asks, taking the glass of sweet tea Valerie offers. 

“They don’t tell me much.” He can see them trying not to stare at the place his arm used to be, but he doesn’t care, really. He’s used to people looking at him, even in the army when guys would stare at him, even the ones he thought wouldn’t go for a guy. Lack of female company could make any guy desperate, but for Bucky it just provided an ample array of opportunities to fuck without the added layer of shame that came with going all the way with men when there were actual women to choose from. He glances at Valerie, who’s sitting up straight with her hands in her lap, and crooks his lips in a grin before glancing back at her parents. “They’re not doing so well, are they?”

Peter sighs and smiles apologetically as if it’s his fault that the Barneses have eyes too big for their wallets. Bucky always knew his parents weren’t great with money, but it wasn’t a problem when they had some. They survived the economic downturn with ease, but now it seems their fortune has run out.

“We try to help out where we can. We know some folks aren’t as lucky as we are.”

Bucky nods again and reaches out for Anne’s hand. “We really appreciate it. Now I’m back hopefully I can help out, too.”

“Especially with the pension money,” Valerie says. She’s a bit slow and brash, but Bucky doesn’t mind. Same as her parents, she’s got that Louisiana twang in her voice that he loves so much. “That’s gotta be worth something.”

Anne chides her for being so blunt, but then she’s ushering Valerie and Bucky out the door with the promise to come over to the Barneses’ for dinner one night this week, “so why don’t you two catch up now? And bring back a loaf of bread and some lamb chops, dears.”

Bucky takes Valerie’s hand when they’re walking down the steps of the townhouse, her dress swishing with each step, a sight Bucky hasn’t tired of and maybe never will. Both their parents have been waiting for their wedding for years now, but Bucky isn’t the marrying type and Valerie seems to get that because she never pushed. As they stroll hand-in-hand down the street, Valerie catches Bucky up on some of the things he missed while he was away, and Bucky deflects her questions about what the war was like with his usual charm. 

“But it’s good to be home, right?” She asks, her voice molasses-rich, her eyes big and brown like old pennies. 

He leans in to kiss her on the cheek, keeping close to her ear when he says, “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Her gaze dips low and heated when she turns to him, walking backward and pulling him along. “Let’s go back to yours. Can’t do it at mine, folks always there.”

Bucky smiles at her brashness, at the sudden joy he feels being back home among the sights and sounds of New York. He hasn’t felt a woman’s touch since before he shipped out, and he thought he would miss them more. But instead of pleasuring himself to sleep every night, the ever-present fear of Steve dying alone without him kept him awake, only abating when there was someone to shoot. 

He thinks about Steve now, still in the mud and shit of a battlefield, getting shot at, getting knocked down, getting back up. “Maybe some other time, sugar.”

She makes a noise of frustration and tugs on his hand. “Come on, Bucky. Ain’t you just dying for it? I ain’t hopped on since before you left. No guys ‘round here worth doing it with.”

Bucky tosses his head back and laughs, but the truth is, being what he is, he didn’t want for much in the army except a hot shower and a decent coffee. For every guy he got off with, there were three more around every corner looking for the same, and not all of them cared which way they got it. They weren’t all worth doing it with, but you took what you could get, and you were grateful for that. 

“Not today, sorry. Still gotta get used to my sea legs.”

Valerie pouts but drops the subject, and they amble along to the bakery, taking their time and stopping to kiss along the way. That Bucky did miss, the softness of a woman’s lips, the gentleness. The sweet yearning. He walks Valerie back to her house with the bread and lamb chops, and then slips quietly home, already out of the energy he needed to keep up his facade, falling into his bed before either of his parents can catch him.

* * *

The first time he goes back to his and Steve’s apartment feels just like walking home after visiting his parents any other day. Sometimes Steve would come with him, but more often than not he would be working on his commissions or nursing any random malady that happened upon him, and Bucky would always come back with a couple of new pencils for him, some liver oil for his iron deficiency, and a few dollars lining his pocket that Steve would grumble over if he found out.

It’s also like walking into a ghost story from months past. Everywhere he turns is somewhere Steve was: his back bowed over the easel still near the fire escape with its half-finished Brooklyn skyline, as though Steve is going to come back to it any moment now; sacked out on their ratty couch like an alleycat in the sun as it set and cast him in its glow; the patch of floor he would do his calisthenics on, but only when he thought Bucky was asleep or out, embarrassed by the way his body contorted, or the way he needed the exercise to keep his scoliosis from getting worse. 

Every surface is covered in a thin layer of dust that Bucky kicks up as he walks through. He didn’t know what Steve was doing all those months he was on the USO Tour—his letters were always so vague, and Bucky worried about him traveling so much—but it wasn’t cleaning the apartment. Bucky wanted to come back to this place and sent some of his pay back here every month to keep it in their name. It was their home, their space, and Bucky missed it with an intensity that he can’t describe.

Steve is here in the spaces he isn’t, haunting Bucky. He drops his load of groceries on the kitchen bench and sorts them into things that need refrigeration after he plugs the icebox back in, things that can be left on the bench, and things that need to keep out of the way in the cupboard. It’s a lot less fun without Steve pestering him about not being able to afford the items he buys, and he never thought he would miss arguing with Steve about money. Valerie was right, though. His pension does count for something. 

Bucky never actually had a job until his conscription, unless you count convincing Steve to stay in bed when he was ill, which was a full-time occupation. Instead, he spent his time with Steve at art class, and took photography lessons, and took trips around the city, and pestered Steve when Steve wasn’t paying attention to him. And sat in Central Park, lazed about, and wrote poetry like he was fucking Walt Whitman or some shit. He got money from his parents every week, and he shut his trap about it around Steve because he knew what was good for him. Now his parents have no money, and Bucky has money, so he’ll be the one supporting them for a change. _What goes around, Steve,_ he thinks. 

He takes twice as long as he usually would to put the groceries away because he only has one arm. It shocks him every time he remembers. Sometimes he thinks he can feel it, and when he tries to wiggle his fingers and nothing happens he remembers with sudden clarity that it’s not there. But he doesn’t care. He went to war, and if all he got was his arm blown off then he considers himself lucky. He started to pin his shirt sleeves up and people stopped gawking so much, so that’s one small thing.

When he’s done with the groceries he takes a seat on their couch and looks around. It sure is boring with Steve still on the frontlines and nothing to fucking do. He could go out again, but he wants to spend time at home. He stretches out, puts his feet up on the scratchy material, and inhales a whiff of Steve’s soap, one of the only things he would let Bucky spend more money on because it made them both happy. Steve got to smell nice, and it took care of his skin rash that would flare up in the summertime. Too much heat and sweat made his body scab up like tree bark. Bucky misses his smell more than he missed this apartment, his ma’s cooking, and hot showers combined.

The 16 weeks Bucky spent at basic were the first time he’d been apart from Steve since they met. He wouldn’t have known what to do with himself if it wasn’t for the orders being barked at him all day, but he missed Steve something fierce and at night he’d wonder how the hell he survived without the little guy asleep across the room, his rattling breaths coming short and sharp even in sleep. And then he’d shipped off to Casablanca, lying to Steve that he was going to Liverpool because England was much less of a scary thought than Morocco, even though all they did in Morocco for the ten days they were there was drink mint tea and wait for the order to move on.

But god, does Bucky ever miss him.

* * *

Becca comes to visit a couple of days later, and by then Bucky has grown so tired of both missing Steve and seeing him in every nook of the house that he agrees to move to Shelbyville and live with her.

She lights up like a bulb when Bucky says yes and helps him pack up his and Steve’s stuff, the little there is of it. Bucky briefly considers keeping the apartment and paying rent long-distance—he can afford it since Becca won’t make him pay for rent or groceries—but he’s not sure how long the war is going to last, and Steve’s going to be over there for the rest of it, so Bucky decides to take everything and face the consequences later. 

“This is nice,” Becca says, staring at the half-finished skyline. “Steve was always such a good artist. I’m glad he was able to make it work for a while.”

“Becs, he was hocking war bond propaganda long before he ever went on that campaign trail. He hated every second of it.”

“But he was good at it,” she says, as though that’s all that matters. What really matters is that he was getting paid for it, but the distinction is moot now that it’s not happening anymore.

Bucky packs his clothes in a suitcase and then folds up Steve’s drawings neatly and carefully puts them on top with his letters. Steve might not want these when he gets back, but Bucky wants them now, hocking be damned. Every one of them was made with attention and care, more care than Steve ever showed to his own body, and Bucky cherishes them all. Distantly, Bucky wonders what Steve’s doing right now and if he’s thinking of him. 

They have one last dinner as a family, and Winifred fusses over Becca and Bucky and pushes more meat and potatoes on their plates before they can finish the first lot. 

“Ma, seriously, I’m stuffed,” Becca says, after the third round of this. Bucky knows they bought it with his pension money and he’s glad to provide for them after all those years of them providing for him. If it gets food in their bellies and electricity keeping the lights on then all the dead Krauts, all the nightmares, all the slices, injections and dysentery were worth it. 

Becca stays the night at their parents’ and they head out the next morning in Becca’s Chrysler, bright and early, earlier than Bucky’s gotten up since he’s been back. His CO would be ashamed of him, but guess who’s not here? Steve Rogers, that’s who. And guess who doesn’t have to run drills in the freezing rain while his boots fill with mud? Bucky Barnes, that’s who. He has to laugh to keep from crying most days. 

Alice and Tommy are physically held back by Winifred as Bucky and Becca load the two suitcases into the car, both of them crying when Bucky hugs them and promises to call every week and write letters with his good hand. George isn’t there to see them off, and it’s better that way because he won’t spoil Bucky’s fresh start. Becca’s got garden beds full of vegetables she promises she needs a hand with, and Bucky jokes that he’s got one of those, so they’re all set. 

He watches his family in the side-view mirror of the car grow smaller until they round a corner and then they’re gone, like thieves in the night.

* * *

Bucky doesn’t have a whole lot to do out here in the Crossroads of America, so he starts writing again. Good thing he didn’t get his good hand ripped off. Between shooting nazis between the eyes from 100 yards away and digging a bullet out of Dernier’s shoulder just to stitch him back up, he’s had enough of learning to do new things in the past year than he cares for. 

He heads into town to buy some notebooks and some pens, nothing fancy, just enough to get him excited about writing again. He passes construction sites where builders are tearing down houses for the urban renewal projects, sites that he can already tell will go to waste in five years or be abandoned before they’re finished. 

“The introduction of new shopping developments,” the well-meaning store owner tells Bucky as she wraps up his notebooks, “means that most of the storefronts are in the process of shutting down, and you’re lucky you got in quick because I’ve got about a week left on the lease and then I’m outta here.” She’s got that Louisiana twang in her voice Bucky loves so much, and he considers asking her out for a milkshake before thinking better of it.

“Where are you headed?”

“New York, the Big Apple.” She says it with such wistfulness in her tone that Bucky feels a smile creep across his face. 

“You got family out there?”

“Nope, but I got dreams.”

Bucky laughs. “Well, when you get there look up the Barneses on State Street, tell them Bucky sent you.”

“Will do, Mr Barnes,” she says with a wink.

He passes more stores along the main strip of town, some already boarded up, but stops when he walks past an electronics store. A television sits in the window showing the same episode of _Missus Goes A Shopping_ , and Bucky decides he needs one of them immediately. He’s rewarded for his choice when it arrives that afternoon, and the nightly news broadcast turns to Captain America and the 107th Tactical Team being interviewed about a raid. 

Steve’s giving his best Captain America, Brandt-honed speech about doing it for his country, while Steve’s unit smoke, swear, and clean their weapons in the background. Gabe Jones and Dum Dum Dugan Bucky recognizes, but he only knows the others from the newspaper clippings and articles Becca collects for him. He feels a pang in his chest for a second, because he misses Gabe, Dugan, and Steve. Fuck, he really misses them, and all the destruction of war and the way it damaged him can’t take away how badly he wants to be back there. 

Becca knits on the sofa and John’s sacked out from a long day of breaking up rocks with other rocks or whatever he does that keeps Becca in the finest of frocks and Bucky’s television on. Eventually, they turn it off to listen to the radio, and Bucky brings out a notebook and a pen and sits for hours just letting his thoughts stream onto the page. He doesn’t mean for it to turn into a journal, but then it does, and then weeks go by and he’s filled up one of his notebooks, pages and pages of his neat script spilling out his worst fears and his greatest dreams, war encapsulated in ways that mean his nightmares aren’t as frequent and he doesn’t stare so much at nothing for hours on end until Becca rouses him for dinner. 

He continues to write letters to Steve, at first short and boring, talking about the things he’s watched on the television or what vegetables he’s been planting, but then they grow longer, more detailed, and by the end of another month he’s staring at an eight-page letter about the first time he and Steve skipped church to chase pigeons in Central Park. It pulls a weight off his chest. He almost feels normal again, and ain’t that something.

* * *

He learns how to cut his fingernails with the clippers between his toes. He and John make special utensils to help with chopping vegetables and Bucky becomes just as useful in the kitchen as he ever was. Becca cuts off the buttons on his pants and sews elastic in, all the better for his expanding waistline, no longer the emaciated waif he was when Steve finally got him out of that factory. 

When he finally gets a chance to help out in the garden, once Becca is sure he’s not going to lose another limb to frostbite, she lets him pick vegetables out of the ground. Bunches of collard greens, leeks, cabbages, spinach, great big green vegetables that make his mouth water. Bucky hasn’t got much of an appetite for meat lately since he saw a hunk of raw mincemeat on Becca’s cutting board and thought, _That was part of something, just like Miller’s guts were before they splattered all over the ground_ , so he stops eating it. His days of killing are behind him, so why would he kill animals? He’s got cabbages now, and that’s all he needs. 

Becca sets him to work picking out all the vegetables while she tills the garden beds. “When are you going to find someone nice to settle down with?” she asks, apropos of nothing but the buzz of bees and trill of a couple of Indigo Buntings. 

“Jesus almighty, Becs, I just got back. You wanna pack me up and ship me off so soon?”

She wipes a smudge of dirt off her face before replying. “You might like it. There are perks to being with someone instead of just by yourself.” 

“Such as?”

“Companionship. Sex. It’s fun, you should try it,” She says, and sticks her tongue out. Everyone from Albany Street and down knows Bucky hasn’t been a virgin since he was 16 and Silvy Summers moved down the block with her legs and her eyelashes. Becca means John, but from what Bucky’s seen John’s not much of a looker nor much of a thinker, so if he has to be saddled with a John for the rest of his life he’d rather keep his celibacy.

“I ain’t the marrying type,” is all he says, rather than explain to her that the only person he ever felt like marrying never knew he wanted to, and he’s at war besides, and he’s going to marry Peggy Carter besides, and it’s illegal besides. Bucky’s a chicken for never letting him know and he’s selfish for ever thinking it in the first place. 

“That’s a line and you know it.”

“You ever seen me with a girl longer than a month?”

Becca is silent for a moment, still hoeing the ground with gusto. “Not a girl, no.”

Bucky stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Does she know? Can she know? Didn’t he keep it a secret well enough? He wasn’t subtle when he was on the frontlines, no, but then no one was. No one got blue carded either, because if every queer on base got sent home there’d be no one left to fight in the war. But back in New York, you could get arrested, beaten up, fired, disgraced. So he kept it hidden when he could, and when he couldn’t hold it at bay, when the urge to feel something hard and silky in his mouth sprung up, when he wanted something that none of his girls could give, well he just had to find one of the sailors who’d come into the city, with their clipped accents and rough hands. But he never brought it back to the apartment, and he never gave Steve any indication he was anything but straight and narrow. 

“Come on, Bucky. You’ve been living with Steve for like seven years now. If you gave half as much of a shit about any of those girls you date as you did about making sure Steve got his ear medicine, you’d already have a couple babies.”

“Yeah well, if it ain’t for me worrying about Steve he never would’ve saved me, and then I’d be just another dead meatball with ‘a couple babies’ plus a widow.” 

He finishes piling the vegetables in the baskets Becca had given him and takes them into the house, anything to get him out of this conversation.

* * *

Back in Italy, even before the Azzano, Bucky never thought he’d make it to Christmas. He thought for sure some Nazi would get a lucky shot in, or maybe he’d get lost in a forest taking a shit and never come back out. Living through the war never entered his mind, so when the week before Christmas of ’43 rolls around and he’s helping Becca decorate the tree, he can’t believe this is his life now.

She holds up a little drummer boy dangling from a piece of wire. “Remember when you wanted to join the symphony?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “right around the time you wanted to be the first female president.”

“My dream was more achievable. Mom wouldn’t even give you a xylophone.” She holds it out to him. “You can be anything you want now, Bucky.”

He stares at the chipped and tarnished little drummer boy in her hand before he takes it. His ribcage feels too tight, too big, too much for his chest, his dreams and expectations too much for his one, lonely life. He breaks off one of the drummer’s arms with his teeth and hooks it onto the tree branch between them. “Now he’s perfect.”

A week later, he takes a seat at Becca’s dining room table with a labyrinth of food placed in an order only Becca understands.

John grins up at her from his place at the table with an adoring smile. “Where do we start?”

She points out the plates as she says their names. “Mashed potatoes first, creamed onions, apple and grape salad, cauliflower au gratin, piquante spinach with beets, mince pie then roast pork—Bucky you can skip those if you want—then gold nugget cake for dessert.”

She meets Bucky’s eye and gives him a modest smile, as though all she wants is for her boys to be happy. Bucky’s heart is bursting. He waits while Becca says grace and then they dig in. Becca used to be a cook before she became a nurse, after she became a beautician, so each bite is a burst of flavor that overwhelms the last one. They eat until they’re full, and then they eat some more, and Bucky still hasn’t gotten used to the abundance of good food in his life. Even biting into a hunk of chocolate from his D-Rations on a warm summer day in Italy doesn’t compare to Becca’s home cooking. He did all the cooking when he and Steve lived together, and nothing he ever made came close to this. 

Finally their forks clatter to their plates and they give up. It’s 3pm and Bucky’s bed is calling his name for a nap, but Becca pulls them both into the living room to look at the tree and hand out presents. They let Becca open hers first, and she just about falls over when she holds up a flattering dress that brings out the color of her opal green eyes—John’s present—and laughs when she opens Bucky’s—a miniature xylophone, small enough to hold in her lap. 

John is next, and he gets a Roman army chess set from both of them, something that Becca saw in a catalog and agreed to let Bucky split with her. Bucky gets one present from the both of them, a Zeiss Super Ikonta that fits into Bucky’s hand as easily as if it were designed for him, with some film and a tripod to mount it on. 

“It might take some getting used to,” Becca says, sitting on the arm of the sofa next to John. “But you need a new hobby.”

Bucky feels his eyes start to brim, so he clips in the roll of film, brings the camera up, and snaps a shot of them, the happiest, most carefree couple he knows.

* * *

Bucky wakes up on January 1st with a searing pain in his limb that’s almost as bad as when they cut it off him. At first, he reaches for a rifle he doesn’t have with a hand that isn’t there, his pulse ratcheting up the longer he goes without finding either. The minute it takes him to come back to himself is as scary as that foxhole in Italy he got himself blown up in, but eventually, he does, and his heartbeat returns to normal. His limb hurts on and off but it’s bad now, bad enough to wake him up and keep him awake. _Scar tissue_ , the camp doctor said. 

It’s the middle of the night but he gets out of bed anyway, goes to the bathroom down the hall to take a piss, and then heads for the kitchen. The one thing the pommies taught him when he was over there was how to make a good cup of tea, and he craves one now, despite the early hour. He only has teabags, but he puts the kettle on the stove—the one he bought special for doing this—and sticks a teabag in a mug. He met a couple of Australian soldiers who called it a “cuppa”, and when he thinks about that, a fond smile spreads across his face. When he thinks about fucking those soldiers in his tent the night he met them, a heat blooms in his belly and he has to adjust himself. 

Lost in his thoughts as he is, the kettle seems to take no time to boil, and he takes a seat at the table with his mug of tea while it steeps in his fingers. He doesn’t often have flashbacks, although he knows a lot of soldiers do. The journey back from the front was good for him. He had the chance to talk about the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, with other soldiers who’d been through it as well. He knows there are groups and meetings he can go to now, but the storm cloud of war doesn’t pass over him that much. He’s lucky. Even if he doesn’t pray like Becca, he counts his blessings every day.

Mostly he misses the use of both hands, misses being able to blow his nose properly, misses fondling his balls while he jerks off. All things considered, he’s been adjusting well, and he didn’t lose his dominant hand, which makes things a lot easier. All the attempts he made in grade school to write with his left hand, just to teach himself a new skill, failed miserably when he got frustrated after a couple of hours. The only reason he kept trying was because of Steve being so sincere in his belief that Bucky could. Steve would shine those beautiful blues at him and Bucky would be on top of the world, pushing himself to be better, do better, just because Steve believed in him.

Over on the front, it was the same. Before he left, Steve had whispered one night, “You’re gonna kill ‘em all dead, Buck,” and Bucky knew he’d go down swinging, just so he could come back and tell Steve he put up a fight. 

He got half his arm blown off and they carried him to the factory unconscious where they put him on that table, and he didn’t do a damn thing except cry and scream. He couldn’t tell Steve that, because then Steve wouldn’t look at him with those beautiful blues anymore.

In the end, he wasn’t the hero Steve thought he would be. A coward is just another thing the nazis made of him.

* * *

The camera is the excuse Bucky needs to get out of the house more. He’s not doing anything, really. He reads, he watches TV, he writes all his thoughts down in his journals, and he harbors ideas of writing a book. Something to do with a pirate who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, like a seafaring Robin Hood. Who is in love with his best friend, a pirate from another ship. And everyone on both ships is gay, so no one is stoned to death or thrown overboard. What a peaceful place that would be. 

Aside from how the journeys both from New York to Morocco and then from England to New York made him queasy, living on a gay pirate ship sounds like just the adventure he needed instead of getting drafted into the army, burning his draft card, and then being promoted twice in nine months just to get blown up by Hydra. 

He has all the time in the world now to do whatever he wants, so he slings his camera around his neck and his tripod under his arm and takes off into town. No one pays any mind to the guy missing an arm and taking pictures of the construction along the main street. He has the time of his life seeing the town as someone who lives there now. The red brick, one-story buildings, and the small-town feel of it all make something swell in his chest. New York City may have the people, but Shelbyville has something else—some quintessential piece of American life that can’t be replicated, like Coca-Cola. 

He takes photos of the people, too. He asks them to pose outside shops, women in below-the-knee length dresses, men in single-breasted suit jackets. It’s like something out of a dream for him; times are changing, fashion too, and he gets to see it. He gets to be a part of it. The next time he comes into town he gets fitted for one of those suits, and he becomes one of those fashionable people walking around town. 

It’s a quiet life, but it’s his.

* * *

Bucky’s sitting out on the front porch, enjoying the cool stillness of the spring morning and a hot cup of coffee, when the first batch of Steve’s letters arrive. Becca drops them into his lap without looking at them, and Bucky doesn’t think anything of it, at first. They’re nondescript-looking things, bundled together with a rubber band. They were addressed to his parents, but Winifred sent them to Becca’s with a little note herself saying they all arrived at once.

The first letter is dated from early January, and Steve’s handwriting is still the same loopy scrawl it always was. Bucky can’t breathe just looking at it. He brings it up to his face and inhales the scent of the tissue-thin paper. He can almost smell Steve’s soap or the Brylcreem in his hair, imagining, for a moment, that they’re not an ocean apart, but together again, Steve and Bucky, Bucky and Steve.

 _Hey Buck,_ the letter begins, and Bucky feels a prickle at the corner of his eyes. _It’s only been a couple weeks since you left but Dugan won’t stop yapping about how quiet it is now. Seems to me a little bit ironic. He misses you, and Gabe, and we hope you’re sharp now. Gabe orders a shot for you every time we go out for a drink, but Dum Dum says he should make it four, considering what you used to put away. Even Peggy asks how you’re doing. I ain’t forgot about you either. Feels weird not having someone around to nag me all the time. Feels weirder not having someone around to air my wet socks on the fire escape._

Bucky rakes in a sobbing breath but pushes on. 

_Ain’t the same out here without you. Nights are a little bit colder, the woods a little scarier, the Nazis a little meaner. Send us some of your jokes every now and then, would you? There’s a scary lack of humor out here, much as Dum Dum tries. You haven’t missed much unless you’re still doing drills in our apartment. Keep it down unless you want Mrs O'Flaherty marching up the stairs and pulling your ear again._

Bucky’s tears are dripping down his cheeks now, and the letter swims before his eyes.

_I gotta get back to it. Get some sleep, okay? You deserve it._

He signs it, _Always, Steve_ , and Bucky has to hold back his sobs to keep from Becca hearing him in the house. He feels like he’s been shot; this awful, wrenching pain in his gut and his heart pulls more tears out of him. He never knew he could miss someone this bad. He feels like he could die from it.

He almost stops himself, but in the end, he can’t help it, and he opens the other three letters. They’re just as painful, just as wrenching, and when he’s done, after his marksman’s hand has finished shaking, he feels like he’ll never have the energy to cry again. He’s spent all his tears, and he can live his life without the threat of them overwhelming him again. At least, that’s what he tells himself. The pain in his gut remains, and it takes hours before he finds the strength to get up from his chair.

* * *

Agent Peggy Carter had the cool aloofness of any commanding officer Bucky had served under, and the fiery passion she needed to stay at the top of her game in a room full of men who disregarded her just for her gender. 

She had a strong hand and almost as good aim as Bucky, and when she looked at Steve all Bucky saw was love. It broke his heart in places he didn’t know it could break, because when Steve looked back, it was the same.

He’d never had to share Steve with anyone before, and he wasn’t good at it. He was always making excuses why he couldn’t be in the same room as her, trying and failing not to blow a fuse when Steve showed up to mess late with that dopey smile on his dopey face because they’d spent the afternoon together, “going over reports,” or some such shit. 

Bucky didn’t have a temper, and he was never a gambling man, but both those things were put to the limits when he met Agent Carter. His anger flared at just the mention of her, taking bets with the fellas on when Carter and Rogers were finally going to ravish each other just so it didn’t look suspicious, always betting sooner rather than later because the waiting was the worst part.

He’s patient, though, and like the Russians in the winter, he endures. 

He watches a short clip of Steve reading a map with his compass out, and that damned picture of Carter from a newspaper, god knows where he got it. The first time he saw it in person he almost threw it into the coals of the fire at their feet, sun cresting over the horizon during autumn, the seasons all backward but the summer boiling just the same. He didn’t though because he knew how much it meant to Steve, so much that he didn’t even show it to Bucky. When he introduced them, he was jittery, nervous, excited, and Bucky thought it was cute until he said her name.

The way Steve’s lips formed the words Agent Peggy Carter drove the last nail into Bucky’s coffin. He’d survived basic training, Hydra weapons, a POW camp, losing an arm, and being tortured for a week, but this—the absolute adoration on Steve’s face as she walked up to them in her tailored dress uniform, the slight tremor in his voice when she licked her red lips before he cleared his throat—that was what killed Bucky. Steve had never been this way about a girl—woman, she’s a woman, not like any of the dames Bucky ran around with before the war—and to see it firsthand, to know that Steve had never been this way about Bucky, and never will be this way about him, was like a life sentence. Bucky will never feel with anyone else the way he feels about Steve, and likely Steve will never feel about anyone the way he feels about Peggy, Bucky included. 

She held out her manicured hand, and where she found a shade of nail polish that red out there Bucky will never know. He still felt off-kilter without the weight of his left arm, and he struggled to make his mind connect with the things he was feeling—the horrible, catastrophic guilt of being the only one Steve had for years; the awful, violent pain of knowing that he didn’t have that place anymore. He knew then, as he had known for years and never verbalized, that he could never tell Steve how he felt. It would only jeopardize their friendship, and Bucky would lose him. 

So he shook Peggy’s hand and, later, when Steve asked what he thought of her, Bucky lied and said, “She’s the one for you, Steve.” He’s not sure now if he regrets it. He writes his letters, knowing he can never say it—he couldn’t then and he can’t now the Army reads everything they say to each other—and he considers the matter closed. 

* * *

Steve’s letters keep coming, and Bucky keeps sending his own, keeps his eyes and ears out for anything Captain America related on the news. Most of it is classified though, and Steve keeps it out of his letters. All Bucky has is what Steve tells him and the comics that Becca collects, much to Bucky’s laughter and Steve’s chagrinned letters. She’s as proud of Steve as Bucky is, having known him as long as Bucky has, and would never pass up an opportunity to razz him. They’re bright and colorful, idle stories about the Red Skull robbing banks, because what he’s really doing couldn’t be aired in public. In most of them, Steve really is punching Adolf Hitler in the face. Becca buys them, but Bucky keeps them, and Steve continues to be embarrassed.

* * *

_Hey Buck,_

_Me again. Can’t seem to get rid of me, can ya? I know, I know, I stick around like a bedsore. Can’t say I miss those. All those winters I spent in hospital beds, well, I don’t miss those either. Although it’s so quiet out here some nights I almost miss the sound of my own wheezing. Stupid thing to miss. You’re the only person I know now who remembers me from that time. Isn’t that strange? Some days I wake up thinking I’m small again, days like when it’s freezing out and we wake up with a layer of sleet over us cause we’re sleeping out under the stars or in a foxhole. I wake up and I think, “Bucky will be so mad that I kicked off the covers and woke up with a cold.” But then I wake up and you’re not here. Sometimes I think I’ll never see you again, but then you probably thought the same of me, right? That I might die in Brooklyn without you. Well, I think I did. I think I died and was born again, but right this time. I know you’d flip your wig if I said this to your face, so I’m glad we got a way of saying this stuff. Keep sending your letters, pal, and I’ll keep writing back._

_Always, Steve_

_P.S. Don’t think I forgot about your birthday. The present isn’t much, I know, but you’ve been letting me draw you pictures for 12 years now, so I think you’ll forgive me._

The drawing falls out of the envelope as Bucky shuffles it around. The last few that Steve drew were all of Bucky—sitting on their fire escape, legs dangling over the edge; passed out on the couch after a long day of doing nothing in Central Park while the heat rang down on them; Bucky in the bathtub with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and a washcloth over his eyes while he told Steve stories from his last summer trip with his parents to the Catskills. This drawing is of a countryside covered in snow, footprints leading back to where the 107th Tactical Team huddle around a fire. Steve’s drawn himself in it, as well—himself before Project Rebirth, himself as the little guy Bucky loves so much, the spitfire who broke hell whenever anyone so much as wolf-whistled at a woman walking down the street. He looks out over the countryside as though it’s his kingdom, all his for the taking. He stands proudly as if to say, “here I am.” It’s Bucky’s favorite drawing yet.

He reads the letter over and over again, trying to pick it apart for the things Steve doesn’t say. It doesn’t say “I miss you,” but that’s what he means, right? He doesn’t say, “I wish you were here,” and Bucky doesn’t want him to. He can wish and wish all he wants, but if he actually had to read those words in print, his heart might just give up on him. It’s already torn itself to shreds thinking the same things Steve writes, that Steve’s going to die over there. That Steve is going to die and there isn’t a damn thing Bucky can do to stop it. That there isn’t anything Bucky can do except wish he was dead, as well.

He writes back as soon as he finishes reading it the fifth time.

_Steve_

He pauses, gathering his thoughts. What exactly does he say to that? His hand shakes around his pen and his shadow twitches in the lamplight.

_You’re right about me flipping my wig. You’re lucky I only got one hand to punch you with because that shit ain’t funny, pal. You’re lucky I’m not over there right now with my Colt in hand because I’d knock you off._

He pauses again. What is it about Steve’s clear and plain writing that makes him want to bawl like a baby? He has to stop crying over Steve. 

_Don’t talk like that okay? Just come home. In one piece or missing a few, it doesn’t matter. Just come home._

He tosses the letter into an envelope, seals it, puts his last “Win The War” stamp on it, and places it under his pillow where he can forget about it until morning. He’s so close to saying something he’ll regret that he needs to put Steve out of his mind. He can think about Steve all day long—his big, blue, ocean eyes, the sand of his hair, how great his ass looked in those embarrassing, tiny shorts the one time Steve modeled the outfit just to crack Bucky up—but when it comes to writing him, Bucky will have to hold back. 

But he can’t forget about it. He has more to say, things that couldn’t be put in a letter that—even if Steve wanted to hear it, even if he wasn’t head over heels in love with Carter—will get him dishonorably discharged and Bucky put in an asylum. 

So Bucky pulls out a fresh notebook and starts to write. 

* * *

Bucky sits on the front porch of Becca’s house with Steve’s latest letter in his lap as he finishes a cigarette. He always smokes before opening Steve’s letters, because after he reads them he needs at least an hour to decompress, and if he lets himself he’ll chain smoke the whole time. So smoking _before_ reading. 

He stubs out his cigarette just as Becca comes out from the house. She’s wearing an apron and holding a pair of scissors, for what reason Bucky can’t tell until she says, “Your hair’s getting a bit long.”

“No,” he says, slinking back into the rocking chair. “Uh uh. You’re not touching my hair. Not after an entire childhood of trauma.”

“Bucky, that was one time.” 

“You shaved me bald.”

“Yeah, that was pretty funny,” she says. She looks him over with a worried frown on her face, from his grubby feet to his suspenders falling off his shoulders to his limb. “Let me cut your hair. It’s almost at your shoulders. I used to be a hairdresser, you know.”

It’s true, it has been getting longer. People call him a rebel, and although he doesn’t mind it, they’re wrong; out of him and Steve, Bucky was always the law-abiding good boy.

“How about you don’t cut my hair, and we say you did. No one will know.”

She rolls her eyes and tucks the scissors into the pocket of her apron and sits down on the porch steps. “Let’s spend some time together, then.”

Bucky’s lips quirk up in a smile. “You asking me on a date?”

“All your dates end in fucking, so gross.” She wrinkles her nose.

“Not all of them,” Bucky says, laughing, “Most of them start with that, too.”

“I bet the girls in Brooklyn are having such a hard time now you’re not there to entertain them.” She leans back against the balustrade and closes her eyes. It’s a miserable day, but the clouds part just so, the sun shining down on her in a beam as though she’s the muse and God’s the painter. 

“Can’t you hear the phone ringing off the hook night and day?” It’s a joke, and it stays a joke. Even Valerie stopped calling after a week of him being gone when she got the message that he wasn’t coming back, but Bucky can’t be bothered getting hurt over something like women not paying attention to him. He’s had enough attention for the time being. He’s content to laze around, getting fat off Becca’s pineapple cake, and pretend the horrors of the world are somewhere outside of him, instead of inside of him, waiting to be unleashed.

“Surprised you haven’t brought anyone home since you’ve been here.” Her tone is aloof but holds an undercurrent of something serious that he doesn’t want to poke at, but that she can’t help.

“I haven’t found a woman worth bringing back,” he says. The way Steve’s eyes lit up just at the mention of Carter’s name, the few times Bucky could bring himself to say it, Bucky knew he’d never feel that way about a woman. The only person he ever felt that way about was Steve. Maybe he doesn’t even like women. Maybe he just needed bodies to keep him warm. 

“And if you met someone other than—“ She stops, starts again, her voice low. “—other than a woman?”

Bucky’s whole body freezes in fear. His heartbeat ratchets up to panicking levels and every synapse in his brain fires for a way to get out of this situation. Unfortunately, his body won’t let him move. It only lets him say, “There ain’t nobody else—” before Becca interrupts.

“Oh, Bucky. You know I don’t care. You know that.” Her tone is pleading. 

“Becca, I don’t—don’t know what you’re—” 

“Cut the crap.” There she is, the no-nonsense woman that Bucky was always proud to call his sister. “I know you like men. Even if you don’t want to say it out loud. And I don’t care. You’re my little brother, and I’ll always love you.”

It’s Becca’s fierce tone that calms him and brings him back to himself. His heart beats quickly until it subsides to a dull, deep thump in his chest. “You do, do you?”

Her lips quirk up in a smile too, that Becca smile that suits her so well. “You really think we could live under the same roof for 12 years and not know everything about each other?”

“Well, I thought I could keep some mystery.”

“Not in the Barnes household, you can’t.”

Bucky surprises himself with a laugh. “Yeah, I suppose you can’t.” They sit for a minute in silence while the sun shines down and Bucky stretches out his toes. He could almost forget Steve’s latest letter if it wasn’t for the overwhelming need to read it that thrums through his entire body. But he’s not going to ignore Becca when she’s sitting right there and when there’s clearly something else she wants to tell him.

“Speaking of secrets,” she says, “John and I are pregnant.”

“Really?”

Becca nods, her eyes wide. “Really. We went to the doctor yesterday. I’m two months along.”

A smile creeps along Bucky’s face and Becca smiles too. Bucky leaps up from his chair and pulls her to standing, wrapping her up in a hug and lifting her off her feet as she squeals. “That’s fucking fantastic, Becs,” he says, as he puts her back down. 

Tears slide down her face and her nose is stuffy when she speaks. “We wanted to tell you first before we told anyone else. You deserve to know.”

Tears slide down Bucky’s cheeks, but they’re happy tears, born from the elation expanding in his chest like a balloon. “That’s really sweet of you. Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

They both spend a minute wiping the tears from their faces before the reality of the situation sets in for Bucky.

“Are you going to be okay? At work, I mean. They’re not going to fire you, are they?”

Becca takes a breath and wipes her wet hands on her apron. “I don’t think so. I work in the maternity ward, so that would be a bad look. Not to mention counter-productive. Even if I get fired, John’s teaching provides us with enough income.”

“And you know I’ll always help where I can,” Bucky says. Becca opens her mouth but Bucky continues, “It’s only fair. You don’t make me pay rent or pay for my own groceries. It’s a much better deal than I was getting in Brooklyn.”

“All you eat are eggs and vegetables from the garden. You’re cheap to keep around.” Becca gives him a soft smile. “Are you planning on sticking around? Once Steve gets back, I mean.”

Bucky shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe Steve will want to move out here and we can build a house in your backyard.”

Becca lets out a laugh. “Nah, you city boys don’t stray too far from the action.” She pats Bucky’s shoulder and steps towards the house. As she opens the screen door, she looks back with a wistful expression. “Were you and Steve—” She stops herself and turns away. “Never mind, forget it.”

“What?” Bucky says a moment before it clicks. She looks back at him, and something must show on his face, some devastation, some truth, because her expression turns soft and sad. Bucky clears his throat. “No, we never—we were never like that. Steve’s—he’s got Peggy Carter. And I’ve got my camera.” He nods towards the small table next to the rocking chair that he’s claimed as his own, where the camera sits, its strap falling off the side of the table. 

Becca’s sadness doesn’t go away. She leans up to kiss him on the cheek. “If that’s enough for you, then I’m happy. I just want you to be happy.” She gazes at him for a few seconds, and he tries not to shy away from the scrutiny. “Are you happy, Bucky?”

Bucky speaks through the lump in his throat that threatens to choke him. “Yeah, Becs, I am.” She leaves him outside with his camera and his letter, and it’s not until later, when he’s falling asleep with it clutched in his hand, that he considers the truth of the statement. Is he happy? For the first time since he got drafted, he is.

* * *

Instead of emboldening him to seek comfort in strangers, his chat with Becca, which disproved his theory that everyone he loves would reject him if they knew the truth, emboldens him in a new way. He’s not going to put it in their letters, but he will tell Steve when Steve gets back from the front. Maybe not, “Hey, I’m in love with you,” but more along the lines of, “Hey, I’m a queer and there’s nothing wrong with that.” He’s not sure what label fits him best, but it’s the closest he’s got. He doesn’t want for female company anymore, but the ache to be with men, that’s always there. The ache to be with Steve, specifically, is always there. 

“Hey,” he says to the tabletop, in the middle of the night as his tea steeps in his hand, “I’m gay, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” He fights hard not to imagine Steve’s reaction, because there are only three ways it could go, and two of them hurt like hell. 

1\. Steve will accept him, and be happy that Bucky came clean.

2\. Steve will accept him, and they’ll never talk about it again. 

3\. Steve will reject him, and that will be the end of their friendship.

The first one is ideal, but the second one hurts because being gay is a big part of him and he doesn’t want to hide that. Steve wouldn’t—and knowing him, can’t—hide the part of himself that’s in love with Peggy, so why should Bucky have to hide that part of himself? At least with Steve. He’s not ready to throw himself a party and invite the whole town, knowing he could get thrown into an asylum and be experimented on again. Or beat up, or killed. 

But maybe his amputee status exempts him from that. Maybe they wouldn’t kill a war vet with one arm, because that’s un-American, and he almost died for their country. Maybe he could be one of the people standing up for queer rights and see it actually happen in his lifetime. The right for homosexuals, lesbians, gays, queers, and whatever Bucky is to live peaceably, to be accepted in society, to get married, to not be arrested or shamed for loving who they want to love. What a world that would be. 

He drinks his tea and watches the sunrise through the kitchen windows. He’s still sitting there, lost in his thoughts, when John gets up for work. 

“You right there, Bucky?” he asks, patting Bucky on the shoulder as he moves through the kitchen.

“Yeah, John,” he says, a smile on his face. “I’m great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOD GOD DAMN. This is the longest fanfic I've ever written, and could possibly be the longest thing I've ever written. Sorry for the mammoth list of tags, but I wanted to get everything warned for before you came into the story. Yes, there is major character death, but also, it has a happy ending. No one is ever really dead in the Marvel Universe, right? Right.
> 
> Love as always to my fantastic beta and friend and confidant and run-amoker hark_bananas, who fills my soul tank everyday (not a euphemism). As if I could love them anymore, they promised to do art for this, so look forward to that!
> 
> The last chapter (Chapter 10) will be a reference list so stay tuned for all the links and books I visited/read (/listened to… audiobooks are the future) to find out more! There’s some really cool stuff like a Historical Sex Slang Timeline that is pretty much the best thing I’ve ever read.
> 
> I did as much research as I could on slang (which was incredibly fun) but obviously I can’t know for certain when most of the words I wrote were invented/used in popular culture or where they were invented/used so take all this with a grain of salt! The weird ones are period-typical slang though. Just assume Bucky is so hip he’s up with all the new slang. Look at the reference list in Chapter 10 for more info! If you know of any cool info about this please leave it in the comments for me and other people to learn about!
> 
> I mean does it even need to be said that I don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of the USA and Russia throughout the 20th Century? Because I’m saying it now. If you’ve got any cool info about the stuff in here (especially stuff I’ve missed or gotten wrong) feel free to leave it in the comments so we can all learn about it!
> 
> I would describe them as “not explicit” (or as explicit as I usually write them in PWPs) but there are sex and masturbation scenes. Hopefully you will enjoy this anyway! If you do want to read some smut, I have plenty of that. 
> 
> I’ve changed the dates of a lot of stuff and made up some other stuff because I either couldn’t get a proper date or it just worked out for the fic. For instance, apparently Zola dies in the early 70s in MCU canon, but in this he survives past that. Howard dies in 1981 in this fic, even though he died in 1991 in MCU canon.
> 
> Bucky is wrong when he expresses that the army would never kick him out for being queer because there are just too many queers to kick out: more than 9000 American servicemen were blue-carded in WWII. He’s just a rascally bastard with too high of an ego and a death wish.


	2. 1944

_Can I tell you a secret, Buck? Well, tough shit, I’m going to anyway. We spend a lot of time together, me and the guys. We run drills with the infantry, we take orders, we eat together at the mess, but the truth is, no matter how much time I spend with other guys, it’s lonely as hell. It’s hard not to think about living in our shitty apartment in Cobble Hill where we spent most of our time together. It’s hard not to think about you now, not being here with me when we’ve been with each other most of our lives. It cut me deep when you went off to basic, because it was the first time since we moved in together that I didn’t see your face every night. You’d always come home so excited from being out doing god knows what, something new and shiny in your hands to show me, like a couple peaches you picked up at the market, or a new type of pencil that you bought for me. The guys round here might look up to me, but they don’t have what you got. That excitement, I mean. Like I was the only person in the world you cared about. You have Becca and Alice and Tommy and your parents, but you always made me feel special. Out of all the dames you courted and all the fellas you befriended, you always came home to me. Guess I never thanked you for that. But I guess maybe I don’t need to. It’s lonely as hell without you here, is what I’m trying to say. The world’s a big place, I’m realising that now, but your letters make it seem smaller. Like maybe we’re not an ocean apart, but just next door. So keep writing, and I will too. PS I’m sending some pictures this time so you don’t forget what I look like. The official photographer is always coming around. He could teach you a thing or two about cameras, or maybe you already know everything, and you could teach him._

The photos are tucked away in the envelope, and Bucky pries them out carefully. The first one he sees is a group shot of Steve and the 107th Tactical Team, standing in various positions around the frame, guns drawn—Gabe smiling, Dernier mid-whistle, Dum Dum smoking a pipe, Falsie looking off to the side. Morita is talking with his hands, and Steve is laughing at him, probably at some crass joke he’s making. Steve lied about there being nothing funny out there, but Bucky doesn’t mind. At least he has his team to watch his back and make him smile like that. 

He puts the envelop next to him on his mattress and flips through the other photos: Steve pouring over a map, Steve coming out of a tent, Steve standing upright with his hands on his belt, Steve reading a book. The last one, and the one that Bucky looks at the longest, is a candid shot of Steve sitting on a crate, gazing up at the camera, his mouth slightly open, surprised as though he was caught in the middle of something. His eyes are bright, stunning. His hair looks soft in the mid-morning light. 

Bucky’s getting hard even before he drops Steve’s letters back on his bedside table. He brings his feet up behind his ass and places the last photo on his thigh where he can look at it. He fumbles his pants down and gets a hand around himself, already aching. He’s done this before to the thought of Steve—when he first figured out how to do it, before they moved in together, and on the rare occasions Steve went out at night with his art school friends—but it’s worse now, knowing Steve isn’t coming back anytime soon. He’s beautiful like this. His blonde hair and those eyes, god help him, those blue eyes, his skin as soft as silk, his breath hot on Bucky’s arm when they slept together—sick as he was, Bucky loved it, loved having Steve in his arms, loves Steve more than he knows how to love, loves the smell of his skin and hair and comes onto his own stomach. 

He picks the photo up and gazes at it as he lies there until his heartbeat returns to normal. He’s always waiting for his heartbeat to go back to normal. What is normal, anyway? Normal is having Steve around. Normal is having two arms to hold Steve back when he picks a fight with the biggest guy in King Kullen. Normal is—it doesn’t matter. Normal is what’s happening now, and Bucky has to live with jerking off to his best friend’s picture while Steve gallivants around all of Europe, looking to get killed by nazis. 

Goddamn, what Bucky wouldn’t give to be over there with him. He didn’t stick around any longer than he could without attracting suspicion. He wasn’t up for any job the Army wanted to give him, and while he laughed at the joke Steve made about being the camp mascot, the realization stuck with him that this wasn’t his war to fight anymore. Steve was going to stay, and he was going to win that war, and there wasn’t a damn thing Bucky could do about that either. 

He wipes his stomach off with yesterday’s shirt and tosses it away. He’ll get to it in the morning, before he writes back to Steve. He’ll write something about how Indiana is better than New York and Steve should move out here when he gets back from winning the war. He can settle down here where there aren’t as many people to gawk at Captain America. 

But maybe they won’t recognize him without the uniform. Maybe Bucky won’t even recognize him without the uniform. Who is Steve now, anyway? Not the little spitfire with split knuckles and a black eye. Not the little guy who wouldn’t run away from a fight. Now he’s built like a tank and taller than Bucky, even. He’s never been taller than Bucky. Even though Bucky is so glad he’s okay, so glad his breath doesn’t rattle in his chest, so glad he doesn’t have to eat raw liver, the fact of it is jarring. The fact of Steve, this new Steve, this yellow labrador of a man who puts Bucky first because Bucky is weaker than him now. Because out of the two of them, Bucky is the one that needs taking care of.

But Steve isn’t here to take care of him. What Bucky wouldn’t give for him to be.

* * *

_Did I tell you I met Josephine Baker? I met Charles de Gaulle too, but he was less impressive. Jospehine is—wow, Buck. I can’t even describe her. An incredible woman. She performed for us, can you believe? Really raised the morale of the camp. I was too shy to introduce myself, but she came up to me, told me she’d heard of me. Can you believe that? Do you remember those nights we’d sit in your living room after your parents had gone to bed, listening to Josephine and James P. Johnson and Sydney Bechet and Louis Armstrong? Josephine says she left America for a lot of reasons, but I think I know one of them. It’s fucked up that if she went back to America she wouldn’t have the same rights as us. Like Gabe and Jim. You know? Makes me really fucking mad. The Tuskegee Airmen are braver than anyone else in the service, and they’ve never lost a bomber. Would you want to go to one of those marches with me? I think having a couple of war vets would do some good. We could help, you know? I could do something useful with what Dr Erskine gave me. What’s the point in having this serum, in being Captain America, if I don’t do anything with it?_

Bucky takes Steve’s letter with him to the living room where Becca has the record player set up and takes a seat on the carpet. He feels like he’s 12 years old again, looking for something to play in his parents’ den, thinking that Steve’s on his way over with another record he picked up from the market. Bucky searched through her records, none of which are familiar to him, and finds a Bing Crosby album. It’s new enough that he’s surprised Becca’s records are so up to date.

He puts it on and lies back on the carpet. He imagines one of the dancehalls back in Brooklyn, bopping to Bing Crosby with a dolly in his arms. Steve would be there too, not dancing but just enjoying the music, the high points of his cheeks red from a drink or two. Bucky could barely control himself some nights, wanting to kiss Steve so badly it thrummed through him like a lightning strike. Bucky would touch him, pulling Steve to his side, tugging his lapels into shape, cuffing the back of his head, tugging on his earlobe—any part of Steve he could get his hands on and still be civil about it. It was all Bucky allowed himself to do, and he did it because they were in public. 

He didn’t allow himself to touch Steve like that when they were at home, because he wouldn’t be able to control himself. One touch would lead to more, would lead to many, and then Bucky would make a fool of himself. It keyed him up, touching Steve like that. It made him frantic and messy, so he’d get drunk and when the drinking was done and they were walking home together, he’d get close to Steve and say shit like, “You’re my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I know people leave you, but I won’t, okay? I promise I ain’t ever gonna leave you.”

He feels tears slide down his temples, spurred on by the memory. He said he wasn’t going to leave, but he made a liar of himself the night he left for the front. And now Steve is over there, without Bucky, and all Bucky has are his letters and his lie.

* * *

He’s sitting on a bench, smoking and resting, when a couple walks out of the courthouse. They’re smiling and laughing, and the bride has a bunch of flowers in her hand. They’re both dressed in fancy clothes that aren’t exactly wedding attire, but they cut fine figures nonetheless. Bucky watches them with a smile on his face and an ache in his heart for a future he can’t have. 

As they traipse down the steps, they stop at the sidewalk and kiss. Bucky watches them, smiling himself, and when they glance at him, he holds up his camera. 

“Want a picture of the big day?”

They glance at each other and shrug. “Sure, fella,” the groom says, and Bucky positions his tripod as they get into place with the courthouse behind them. He snaps three photos, one of them looking at him and two of them looking at each other, and he smiles at them. He thinks of Steve’s letter, and how he agrees, they could do some good. He knows he’s a selfish asshole because mostly he just wants to make Steve happy. 

“You make a sharp couple,” he says, and they laugh. “I can get them developed at the shop over on North Noble and leave them there for you.”

The couple looks at each other. “We can’t pay,” the groom says. “We got one on the way, you know how it is.”

Bucky lowers his camera and waves his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“We couldn’t,” the bride says. “That’s too much.”

Bucky smiles his thousand-watt smile, the one all the ladies swoon for. “I’m serious. I’m almost through this roll. Call it a wedding present for the happy couple.”

They relax and Bucky snaps a couple more photos. They started slow dancing in the street, holding each other close, the groom’s chin resting on the bride’s head. They don’t look older than 21, and even though Bucky is only 27, he feels a pang for the lost days of his youth. 

“What’s your name?” the groom asks, sticking out his hand when Bucky’s done.

Bucky shakes it. “Everyone calls me Bucky.”

“I’m George, and this is my wife Dinah.” The look they share when George says “wife” is nothing short of the kind of love Bucky saw when Steve and Peggy looked at each other. But instead of petty jealousy, he feels heartened by it. 

“Like the song,” he says, and Dinah laughs.

“Yeah, like the song. I came first though, don’t let anybody tell you different.” She smiles brightly, and her voice has a beautiful, lyrical quality to it. She picks a flower from the bunch in her hand and holds it out to him. 

“Maybe the song was named after you.” He takes it, brings it up to his nose, and inhales. “Thank you. That’s real sweet.”

“Yeah, you’re really in my debt now,” she says, laughing with her voice and her eyes. 

He tucks it into the front of his shirt. “I’ll treasure it always. Come by the photo shop in a month. I’ll tell them to hold onto the pictures for you.”

“Thank you,” George says, taking Bucky’s hand in both of his. “I mean it.”

Bucky looks into George’s kind eyes and feels the ghost of longing pull at whatever is left of his heart after he left Steve. “It’s my pleasure.”

He leaves them to get into their car and drive off. There’s nothing to mark the occasion, no streamers or tin cans, nothing to draw attention. They got married just now, and there was no one here to know. No one except Bucky and whoever will look at their pictures, their babies when they’re grown, or their grandchildren after that. Bucky can’t live in a world where people like George and Dinah don’t get to live long, happy lives. 

So yeah, he thinks, he will march with Steve. And maybe Steve will march with him one day when Bucky takes a stand and proclaims to the world how proud he is of being himself. One day he won’t have to hide. 

As he’s coming out of the photo shop, a woman walks out of the Shelbyville Democrat office, a cigarette between her red lips. When she holds her lighter up to her mouth and flicks it, nothing happens. She tries a couple of times to the same end. Bucky, still with the flower in his shirt, walks over to her and holds his own lighter out.

“Thanks,” she says around the cigarette. Bucky lights it, she inhales, and takes it out with her fingers to blow a stream of smoke. She looks him up and down with her shrewd gaze. “I’ve seen you around before. You’re a city boy, aren’t you?”

Bucky licks his cracked lips and feels the ghost stir. “That’s me. What do you know about the city?”

“It chews up boys like you.” She speaks with absolute certainty and an Appalachian accent. “Is that why you’re here? You done being chewed?”

“I guess you could say that.” He leans back against the wall of the office, playing with the petals of his flower. She doesn’t take her eyes off him, but watches him with casual curiosity. Bucky’s used to being watched. He’s spent an entire lifetime of being watched. He’s not sick of it now, though.

“We need a photographer. Marv quit, he hates the gig. Fucking asshole grabs my ass but can’t take an order from a woman who won’t make him coffee. Wants to spend more time with his family and less time in the sun taking pictures of bake sales. Took his camera with him too. Can you do that?”

Bucky shakes his head to clear it. “Which part?”

“The part about a job, you schnook.”

Bucky laughs. Women don’t usually talk to him that way, and he likes it. “Sure, I’ll take a job.”

She looks at his lack of arm. “You on government benefits? I don’t care, I’ll pay you all the same. All I need is for you to point and shoot. Make children happy and parents laugh, that kind of thing. Make sure you get good photos of those chrome-domes from Washington when they deign to visit us. Get to the scene first. Louise is our reporter, she’ll take you.” She stubs her cigarette out under the toe of her high heel. In a whirl of fabric, she turns and marches back into the office. Bucky glances around before he follows her.

The office is about the size of his apartment back in Brooklyn; a row of desks is set up against the wall with typewriters and telephones. Two employees sit there, the sound of typewriter keys clanking as they type. The walls are covered in various newspaper clippings pasted on top of each other, which would give it a dingy feel if it wasn’t for the front windows spilling light into the office. 

The woman stops and turns around. “Louisa, Graeme, this is—what’s your name?”

“Bucky.”

“This is Bucky, our new photographer. He knows how to butter anyone up and can take a better picture than Marv ever could.” Surprisingly, she hits the nail on the head. Bucky reads the newspaper and Marv’s photos are shit. “We have our own darkroom where you can develop photos yourself. You know how to do that?”

“I can learn,” he says, his tone hopeful. 

“Good. You know how to type?”

“Yep.”

“Good. We need extra hands.” She goes over to one of the desks in the middle of the room and picks up a stack of about 10-15 papers. “The fucking war, I swear. We report every day on that, so we need to get some good intel. We get phone calls from all over, so get used to chatting to people you don’t like. Reporters are bloodthirsty creeps—not you two, you’re aces—and will do anything to get a story.” She drops the papers next to one of the typewriters and points at Bucky. “Type these up by 4pm, then you can go home.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and takes a seat. Unlike the other woman, Louisa and Graeme aren’t very chatty, so he spends the afternoon in a haze of words, keys, and cigarette smoke. Occasionally the phone rings and Louisa picks it up, taking notes and laughing with whoever is on the other end. It’s a lot harder to type with one hand, but he takes his time to get it right, and by the time he’s finished he’s worked up a rhythm. 

It’s 3:30 when he takes his typed-up pages to the woman’s desk.

“Well, look at you go,” she says. She’s got a green bottle on her desk and a tumbler half-filled with the clear liquid inside. “Take a seat,” she says. As he does, she pulls another tumbler from a cabinet under her desk and tops it up with the clear liquid. “How’d your first day go?”

He shrugs. “Easy peasy.”

The woman laughs. “You say that now, but wait ’til it’s 4am and you’re taking photos of a man who’s been hit by a drunk driver, practically a skid mark on the road, while his wife sobs into a cop’s arms.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Bucky says, trying to sound indifferent. 

She eyes him with that penetrating gaze. “You have, haven’t you? What have you seen?”

He clears his throat. “It’s not for polite conversation.”

She laughs again. “Not much is in this office. You better get used to talking about gruesome shit, because it’s going to keep happening. We’re muckrakers here, we want the truth, hard and fast, partisan shit. Freedom fighter shit. None of that both-sides or conservatism. You got a wife, kids?”

He shakes his head. 

“Got any questions for me?”

“I don’t know your name.”

“Theresa. Anything else?” 

He considers this for a second while he picks up his tumbler. “Were you born in America?” 

“Korea. Spent eight years there before we moved over. Definitely some things I miss, like the people, the culture, the food, the sights, the ocean, the cigarettes, the alcohol. You can’t make a drink as good as soju, and fuck you if you think you can.” She looks at him shrewdly. “That a problem for you?” 

“No, ma’am. I can take my orders from any woman who wants to give them to me.”

“Good. Enough of that ma’am shit. I’m 34, I’m not dead.”

“Alright, Theresa.” He takes a sip of the drink and winces. It’s potent, but not as potent as they stuff Bucky and Steve would smuggle into Sarah’s apartment when they were teenagers. Moonshine never really loses its kick. “You were drinking when you were eight?”

That brings a smile to Theresa’s face. “We get it shipped over. Plus I went back a couple of years ago, just to see what it’s like. Definitely better than America.”

“I hear it’s in turmoil.”

“What country isn’t? You think America’s not up to its neck in deep shit? You stick around here for one fuckin’ day, I _promise_ you’ll be begging to go back to the front.”

“What do you know about the front?” Bucky says, a little too boldly. It’s still a sore subject for him, and maybe always will be.

“I know you’re better off killing people than chronicling their problems. People die every day in war, but here they get beat up, shot, raped, hanged, lynched, run over, lose their homes, lose their jobs, lose the respect of their communities, they get sick, real sick, their houses burn down, they just up and die for no reason, or they choke on a pork chop and then bam. Morgue. At least in war, you got a reason someone’s dead.” She barely takes a breath throughout that monologue, and Bucky is impressed. She’s not wrong. Bucky could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Maybe it would be better if he did.

Instead, he smiles and takes another sip of his drink. Theresa finishes her tumbler and pours herself another one. They talk for a while, until Louisa and Graeme have finished their work and gone home. Bucky thinks of making a move on her, but despite the ghost, he doesn’t really have the energy to start anything, especially not with his boss. Mostly, he just misses Steve, and any warm body that isn’t Steve’s is only a ghost itself.

* * *

At the beginning of September, Bucky finds a dog. Or it’s more like the dog finds him. He’s walking along the dirt path that leads from Becca’s front door, when he sees something loping along the side of the road. When he gets closer, the dog tries to run, only to get disoriented and fall over.

“Hey, hey,” he says, hurrying over. The dog whimpers when he gets close so he takes his time, putting his hand out where the dog can see it. “Hey, shhhh, it’s okay.” He makes soothing noises and eventually the dog calms down enough for him to get close. Her front leg is badly broken, the lower half hanging by a thin strip of flesh. “Shit, okay. Let’s get you to the vet.”

He flags down a passing car and the driver takes him the ten minutes into town, and even gives him a towel to wrap the dog up in. The vet takes one look at the dog and says, “We’ll make her comfortable.”

“What?” Bucky asks, his heart hammering in his throat. He didn’t feel jack shit about putting a bullet in the brain of every nazi he came across, but killing a dog is too much for him. “Isn’t there something you can do?”

The vet gives him a look like he’s wasting his time. “We’d have to amputate her leg, for a start,” he says.

Bucky juts out his chin. “That’s not a problem to me.”

The vet looks him up and down. “I guess you’re right. Well, there’s no telling if she’ll make it, so I wouldn’t hold out hope.” He sighs and Bucky strokes the dog’s ears where she’s lying on the table. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Bucky gets orders to come back in the morning. He’s good at taking orders, so he does, and the vet shows him to one of the back rooms where the dog is lying in an open cage, bleary-eyed but alive. True to word, half her leg is missing, but she brightens up when Bucky comes close. Her tail _fwaps_ against the mattress in the cage. 

“Hey, sunshine.” Her gorgeous blonde coat reminds him of Steve, and he’s so overcome with emotions at seeing her alive and well that he gets choked up. 

“She’s all good to go, just need payment and your John Handcock on the papers at the reception. You can buy a lead and some food at the convenience store on South Pike. Also, get her a collar.”

Bucky furrows his eyebrows as he looks up at the vet. “She doesn’t have an owner?”

The vet looks puzzled. “Aren’t you her owner?”

Bucky looks back at the dog. She snuffles into his hand, licking his palm and wriggling excitedly as the drugs wear off. “Oh, I guess I am. Huh.” Look at him: Bucky Barnes, dog owner. He calls up Becca to pick him up, and together they go down to the convenience store to buy her a lead, a collar, and a bag of food. Becca is immediately enamored and spends a minute fussing over getting the dog into the car comfortably, even carrying her into the house herself.

It’s only after Bucky’s set up a makeshift dog bed in his bedroom—one of Becca’s old towels on top of a broken-down, cardboard box—that he realizes she doesn’t have a name. He drops onto the ground to sit next to her, and she wriggles until she’s in his lap. She winces every time her bandaged leg hits something, but that doesn’t stop her from slobbering all over him.

“What should I call you, huh?” She whacks her tail on the ground. “Basset Hound, right? With those looks, you’d make even Stevie weep.” An image of Steve’s uniform pops into his mind, the one Bucky saw him in, the star peeking between the layers of his leather jacket like the sun in an eclipse. “Sunshine. A star. Stella. Yeah, Stella. That suits you.”

Stella whimpers and butts his hand with her head.

* * *

The women of France gain suffrage on October 5. 

On October 6, the Canadians free Austria.

The US Navy says that, on October 19, Black women can join WAVES.

The first German city to fall is Aachen on October 21, 1944. 

Five days later, American forces defeat the Japanese at Leyte. 

Bucky welcomes the news the way he’s come to welcome all things since Christmas: taking photos of people’s reactions. 

The war is coming to an end. Any minute now, Steve is going to knock on Becca’s door with his hat in his hand, asking if he can come in, with that puppy dog grin that spreads into a beaming smile. Bucky can feel it in his bones. 

Steve’s letters are obscure, but Bucky can tell he’s had a hand in most of the wins the Allies have had since he joined the war effort. Since he rescued Bucky from Krausberg. It’s not lost on Bucky that Steve rescuing him was as pivotal a moment as getting the serum, because without that Steve would still be running the war bonds circuit. 

God, he thinks, as Roosevelt announces that, “Peace, like war, can succeed only where there is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it.” He wishes he was over there still. He has never felt a pain anything like the white-hot knife of guilt sliding into his stomach as he watches Becca’s and John’s anxious faces. He should be over there. He should be fighting. Hell, he should be over there if only to keep up Steve’s morale. He should be where Steve is. 

He feels a stab of pain in his left limb. Stella seems to notice and comes over to put her head on his knee, tongue lolling out to wet his pants leg. 

“There’s a good girl,” he says, scratching her behind the ears. “Everything is going to be okay.”

The asinine thing is, he actually believes it.

* * *

_Hey, Buck_

_Goddamnit, if I’d have known sooner. I didn’t write to talk about this but it’s all I can think about now. I shouldn’t put this on you. I shouldn’t put this on myself, I know that, but if I’d have known there’s no way I would’ve let you get tortured and fucking experimented on. I can’t stand all this guilt in me, thinking about what you went through, even knowing you’re fine at home, eating the vegetables you grow in your garden. I just can’t stand it. I wanna be there with you, you gotta know that. I’ll win this fucking war, nazis be damned, I’ll kill them all just to come back home and see your face again. Save some of those vegetables for me. I’ll be home before you know it._

_Always, Steve_

* * *

_Hey idiot,_

_You’re whistlin Dixie if you think I’m going to let you feel guilty over me. Don’t, okay? Just don’t. If I had a penny for every time I felt guilty that you were sick and I was healthy—I’d have a lotta fuckin money, pal, let me tell you. Tell me something good about what you’re doing instead. Dum Dum tell you about the time he got put away for a couple of nights in Chelsea for a drunk and disorderly? Or Gabe getting the address of his cousin’s wedding wrong, turning up at a bat mitzvah instead? Maybe I’m airing all their dirty laundry. Serves the fuckers right for telling me in the first place._

_I know the nights are lonely as hell, you don’t gotta tell me. Nights here ain’t so great, neither. Sure, I got a roof over my head and no one shooting at me, but it’s just not the same without ragging you about leaving your socks on the fire escape. I know the guys are in good hands with you. They’re dynamite, and I’m not surprised you picked them. If anyone’s gonna have your back it’s them, and if anyone’s gonna have their back it’s you. But just fucking win the war and come home already._

* * *

Every day, Theresa drops something new on his desk and orders him to get his ass to wherever the fuck it is that needs getting to. Sometimes she’ll ring him in the middle of the night, because apparently she never sleeps. Bucky doesn’t really sleep either, but he musses his hair up before he leaves his room in the morning in case Becca hasn’t left for work yet, and he feigns sluggishness as he makes oats. Becca worries about him enough. The truth is he hasn’t ever felt this alive, this aware. It’s like his third eye has opened and he can see the world for what it is. 

That’s what being in war gives you: perspective. That and ways to focus on things other than what’s going on in your own fucked up head.

Today, he’s taking photos of the high school fundraiser for war widows. They’ve turned the front lawn into an assortment of tables that feature everything from homemade cookies to hand-knitted sweaters. He takes pictures of everything, including the teenagers working the stalls, but stops at one that features a range of art. Most of it looks like it was definitely made by school children, but there are a couple of pieces that look professional. 

The four kids behind the table watch him as he approaches and studies one of the pieces. It’s unmistakably the Manhattan Bridge. The people in the painting are all characters, some with torn clothing, others in fancy suits, and most of them are either playing in the river or fishing. Looking at the painting makes Bucky ache for home. 

“This is incredible,” he says. “Did one of you paint it?”

One of the kids, a girl with long red hair done in pigtails down her shoulders, points to another. The second kid has glasses, a chubby face, and eczema on his hands. “He did. That’s Maurice. He’s good with painting.”

Maurice turns a shade of red akin to a bell pepper. “Yeah, sir, that was me.”

“It’s really good. Is it for sale?”

Maurice nods. “Yeah, of course.” He hasn’t got the Indiana accent that all the other people around here have, save for Bucky and Becca. 

“Great,” Bucky says, dropping his camera around his neck to pull out his wallet. “I’ll take it.”

Pigtails takes his money and Maurice hands over the painting, still red. “Thanks, sir.”

“No problem, kid. You from Brooklyn?”

Maurice nods. “Born and bred.”

“You must be missing it.”

Maurice shrugs. “You must be missing your arm.”

Bucky laughs. “Touché, you little shit.”

Maurice snickers. “Yeah, I really miss seeing people piss in the street and crowd the subways. Here ain’t so bad. It’s just boring enough to be interesting.”

Bucky laughs again. “You’re a real Hoosier now.”

“Same for you, sir.”

Bucky holds the painting out, studying it some more. “I’ll take of this, okay? It’s really special. You should know that. One day I’ll be able to say I had an original Maurice.” 

“Maurice Hernandez. That’s my name.”

“My name’s Bucky Barnes. Find your picture in the _Democrat_ soon.” Bucky smiles. “Don’t let that talent go to waste.”

Maurice mock salutes him and turns back to Pigtails, effectively ending their conversation. Bucky tucks the painting under his arm and turns back to the rest of the stalls. Louisa is with him, talking to people, taking notes in a notebook. It’s only November but already the cold is setting in, and his suit jacket isn’t made for the colder months. He shivers as he waits for Louisa to finish her last interview and they head back to her car.

“It’s colder than a witch’s tit,” she said, as they bundle into her Ford. 

“This thing have heat?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “What do I look like, a fancy city doctor or something?” Where most people treat Bucky with respect, both in the field and out of it, Louisa keeps her distance, and when they are alone treats him with something bordering on disdain. He’s learned from Graeme that her husband was killed in the war, so it seems logical to Bucky that she would disdain any reminder of it. 

Bucky shrugs. He thinks about Steve’s words, about his own conviction that the war will end soon and Steve will come back to him. Other things don’t matter. It doesn’t matter to Bucky what anyone but Steve, Becca, and Theresa think of him, and since Theresa plays her cards close to her chest, he will never know her opinion unless she gives it. He doesn’t even pity Louisa, because he doesn’t think he’s better than her. If he doesn’t have any pity for himself, he sure as shit doesn’t have it for anyone else. 

They drive back to the office in silence that Bucky pays no mind to. It makes no difference whether they talk or don’t, but if it’s up to him, then he’d rather not talk to someone who hates him for who something he can’t change. When they get to the office, Louisa drops into her chair and Bucky goes to the darkroom in the back. 

It’s nice in there. Bucky can work on developing his photos, and Theresa makes sure no one bothers him. At first, it was a budget darkroom that cost next to nothing, judging by the equipment, but once he learned a little bit more about photography and how to develop his own photos, he chipped in with some of his own money upgrading the equipment and convinced Theresa to invest in the rest. He bought a combination timer and exposure meter, a dry mounting press, and an air conditioning unit, all of which costs hundreds of dollars, and all of which have made his work so much easier. 

After he’s done, he packs up for the day and takes his painting with him. He plans to hang it up in his bedroom next to some of Steve’s drawings, the ones he’d had framed and hung on nails. Becca grumbles about the plaster, but if she was really mad she would let Bucky know it. She indulges him, because he’s making himself at home, and she beams with pride every time he does something that signifies how well he’s settling in here. 

She’s in the kitchen making an omelet when he barges in, all smiles and mirth, feeling lit up like a Stark Expo lightbulb. The sound of her humming “I’ll Be Seeing You” cuts out as she turns with an amused expression to look at him, her hair in rollers, her face shiny from lotion. Stella jumps up from her spot near the stove to bound over to him, tongue lolling out and tail wagging like an out-of-control metronome.

“You look happy.” She beams at him, because he’s beaming. 

“Look at this, Becs.” He lays the painting on the table and she comes over, her face turning from amused to shocked.

“That’s incredible!“

“I know.”

She’s still holding the wooden spoon covered in egg, and the batter falls to the floor where Stella laps it up. “Where did you get it?”

“At the fundraiser. A kid painted it. Must’ve been no more than 14.”

Becca chuckled. “You should take a picture and send it to Steve. I’m sure he’d be chuffed to see Brooklyn again.”

“I will,” Bucky says.

Bucky kisses Becca on the top of her head and then takes his painting into his room. He leans his tripod against the wall next to the door, where he can grab it on the way out. Stella follows him in and jumps onto his bed when he drops onto it. His camera is a heavy weight around his neck and he takes it off to put on his bedside table.

The sun is setting through his window, and the day is close to done. He feels a heaviness in his body that contradicts the happiness he felt today, at seeing the painting and then buying it for himself. Steve is going to love it; he had just as much talent at that age. Bucky looks up at his walls to see Steve’s talent spread out along them—the skylines, the interior of their apartment, Bucky’s mom’s house on Christmas day—and some of Bucky, too. Bucky asleep on the couch. Bucky reading _Remembrance Of Things Past_. Bucky sitting on the pier, his feet dangling over the water. He sees himself through Steve’s perspective, his own eyes, his own exuberance, his own easy grace that Steve, awkward and fumbling, was so jealous of. 

Bucky feels a stab of sorrow thinking about him like that. Steve used to be jealous of how easy it was for Bucky to sweet talk women and make friends, but the only friend he really cared about was Steve. Steve knew it, too. He wasn’t exaggerating in that letter. Bucky had people in his life, he had friends and family and acquaintances and dates and guys he blew in back alleys, but Steve was the one he cared about most. Steve was the one he came home to every night, before or after he’d been out on the town. Steve was where his days began and ended. 

That’s the simple truth: Steve is Bucky’s sunrise and sunset. Maurice’s painting shows the life of the neighborhood encapsulated in one perfect moment: the fishing rods and the fish thrashing on their ends, the water reflecting the clouds in the sky, and the sun splashing its rays across the whole scene as it descends beyond the city.

* * *

Suddenly it’s Christmas again, another Christmas that Bucky spends without Steve. That’s two in the entire 15 years they’ve known each other, and it’s not high on his priority list to spend more. He takes pictures of the dinner, of Becca and John, of Stella chewing on the Christmas tree, of the presents they give each other. He can’t do much for Steve, but he hopes his photos are enough. He shoves them in an envelope with another letter, written hastily as his four glasses of whiskey mess with his head. 

_We miss you, Stevie. We’ve got a full refrigerator worth of food, so come on through and help us eat it. My parents aren’t even going to drag us to church, either, because I left them back in NY. HA. Ha ha ha. Okay, punk. Seriously though win the war already and get your ass to Indiana._

“Hey, Becs?” he calls, loud enough to be heard over the radio. He’s sitting on the floor again, with Stella’s head on his thigh as she turns those big browns eyes up at him.

Becca lifts her head from John’s chest to look at him. “Yeah?” Her cheeks are pink from her half glass of gin. John’s smoking a cigarette, which usually she wouldn’t allow in the house, but fuck it, it’s Christmas. Bucky’s trying to kick the habit. 

“How come you don’t go to church anymore?”

A frown creases her brow. “Oh, I don’t know, Bucky. I just don’t.”

Bucky purses his lips. When they were kids, Becca was the one who convinced him to go on Sundays, not just to make their parents happy but because she said it was their Catholic duty. Every week, Bucky would try and weasel his way out of it, and every week she would come up with some new argument as to why they should. He knew it wasn’t the place for him, even if all the stories Father McGinley told convinced Bucky that Jesus was queer too, because the one time he confessed to the funny feelings he had for Kip McGrady, the priest told him it was a sin. 

After that, he managed to convince his parents that he didn’t need to go to church with them anymore because he went with Steve to Epiphany instead. And then every Saturday night he would bunk over at Steve’s, staying up until 3am reading comic books, telling each other ghost stories, and sleeping through Mass. It was a much better use of his time.

“You must’ve a good reason,” he says. He is almost falling asleep on the floor, but something about it is making him itch. “You used to go every Sunday.”

“I said, I don’t know.” Becca sounds annoyed, but she’s also a little tipsy, and surprises them all with a burp.

“Yeah, you do,” he presses, after he stops laughing. “Come on, tell me.”

“It’s because of you,” she says. She might have meant it to sound snappish enough to shut him up, but instead it comes out sad and hollow. “I, um. I told Father McGinley about you—not specifically, but I said, ‘Someone I know is gay,’ and he told me that it was a sin, and I should cut you out of my life in case you infected me, and I turned out gay too.”

Bucky is silent for a few minutes. John pulls Becca back down to rest on his chest, an act of intimacy between husband and wife. Bucky aches for that too, to be that intimate with someone. All the times he spent with Steve in positions like that swim in front of his eyes: how they used to fall asleep in the same bed when they were kids, all the way up until they were adults and could afford their own place with two beds. Bucky longed for the days when they would fall asleep on each other, limbs akimbo, both of them taking up too much space on their respective single mattresses. Waking up with cramping limbs from weird sleeping positions was worth it just to be that close to Steve. It was all worth it.

“So you’ve always gone to bat for me, then.” Bucky gives her a small, appreciative smile. It isn’t enough to make up for everything she does for him, and he doesn’t know what could.

She gives him an answering smile. “And I always will, little brother.”

* * *

It’s New Year’s Eve, and instead of attending Becca’s friend Clarice’s soiree, in which there are many overworked mothers, Bucky’s with Theresa in the _Democrat_ ’s office as they drink away their sadness. 

Theresa eyes him, swilling her whiskey around in her glass. “Do you want to fuck?” It’s the shortest sentence she’s ever said to him.

Bucky snorts. “My boss?”

“A woman.”

He’s still shit at revealing himself intentionally to people. He’s had no practice at actually telling people, “This is who I am,” and plenty of practice at eyeing guys in the right way to make them fall to their knees for him. Yet everyone seems to know anyway.

“Do I got a flashing neon sign above my head or what?”

Theresa shrugs. “You’re not like other guys.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, shuffles down in his seat and spreads his knees further, as if that will make up for how manly he isn’t. “Do I have to guess what you mean by that?”

Theresa drains her glass and pours herself another one, choosing her words. “You’re quiet and thoughtful. You take care of yourself. And you look women in the eye, instead of at their chests.”

“Excuse the fuck out of me for not objectifying every woman I meet.”

“You’re excused.”

Theresa’s dry tone and sharp wit make Bucky laugh, and then she laughs, and they split their sides over nothing.

“You got a guy in the war?”

Bucky takes a sip of his drink, choosing his words as carefully as Theresa does. They’ve been drinking for hours and Bucky’s not even tipsy. “Yep.”

“Let me guess, big hunka muscle. Some doll-faced, beefed-up ham sandwich who wails on every guy who looks at you funny. Someone has to defend your honor, right? I got me a guy like that. Most guys around here look at a woman like me with that thing in their eye, you know what I’m talking about.” She’s on her way to drunk and getting incrementally less self-aware, which is a good look on her. “But then they hear my accent, and they realize they can’t buy me like a $2 hooker.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with $2 hookers,” Bucky says, and she laughs again.

She eyes him again, but this time it’s appreciative. “Yeah, I bet you’ve had a lotta hookers in your day. Tell me about your fella.”

Bucky holds his finger up then drains the rest of his drink. She tops it up as he holds out his glass. 

“Well, I don’t really know how to describe him. He’s a big guy now, but I’ve known him forever, and it’s hard not to think of the little guy I fell in love with when we were 15.” Theresa watches him carefully, soaking up his words, glancing down when he catches her eye. “God, I don’t even know. I miss him so bad, you know? I got to see him before I shipped back home. Spent about a month in camp while I was getting patched up, and he was there. Hovering around, you know, making sure I was eating right, that my wound wasn’t turning septic. It was so good to see him. I really had to keep my cool to stop from kissing him in front of everyone when I had my wits about me again.” He sighs and shrugs. 

“I think that’s the most you’ve ever said in one go,” Theresa says, and holds out her glass in cheers. “To heroes and the people they leave behind.”

“Here, here,” Bucky says, nudging his glass against hers. 

~

_Hey Buck,_

_I sure as hell don’t miss hangovers, especially not with that toilet bowl whiskey you used to get for us. You never told me where you got it from, and I reckon you’ll take that secret to the grave. I’ll just chalk it up to one of life’s little mysteries. New Year’s was a gas. Dum Dum got uproariously drunk of course, but the others weren’t far behind. They needed the morale booster. It wears on them, I know it does. No matter how many wins we have, it’s hard as hell being out here, out in the shit and mud of a battlefield, waiting for someone or something to drop from the skies and end it all. The dead lie where they fall, and they rot or they get eaten, and when it gets quiet enough I swear I can hear them talk to me. Even I can die, we all know that. I don’t tell you about the near misses, the almosts, because I know how it would eat you up inside not being able to save me like you used to. Don’t pretend like it doesn’t work that way, Buck, because we both know the truth. I don’t need saving anymore. And if I go to my death here, out here where the loneliness suffocates and the dead whisper, then I go to my grave having paid you back. If nothing else, you’re alive, and everything I do is worth it for that._

* * *

At 10:09am on January 21, 1945, Becca gives birth to Amy June Proctor, 7.6 lbs, blue-eyes with a shock of black hair. After six hours in the waiting room, Bucky and John see Becca, who is worn out and frizzy-haired, but breathing and alive. And Amy, this sleeping mound of flesh and hair, resting on Becca’s chest. When Bucky holds her for the first time, he feels a surge of love that rivals the force of love he feels for Steve.

* * *

It’s a lovely February morning, the snow blanketing the ground, as Bing Crosby’s voice croons from the wireless, “I’ll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.”

It’s a fine day to be alive, and to be in love.

* * *

Bucky doesn’t know what to expect when he turns up on Theresa’s doorstep with a bottle of wine and a pocket full of dreams, but meeting Theresa’s partner Lauren, a Russian who grew up in England and now lives Stateside, isn’t any weirder than meeting a tall, Asian woman with an Appalachian accent.

“Theresa’s told me so much about you,” Lauren says with a smile as bright as a star, while Theresa yells from the kitchen, “Fuckin’ took you long enough.”

There’s the spit of cooking fat and then the sound of fire bursting as Theresa swears and Lauren hustles him into a chair in the kitchen. 

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Bucky says.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, kid,” she says, handling a frypan like she’s mad at it while a cigarette dangles from her mouth. 

Behind her, Lauren mouths, _She can’t_ , and shakes her head, which makes Bucky laugh. 

The house is a quaint bungalow on the east side of town, but it has a lot of heart. The walls are covered in a horrendous yellow wallpaper. There are burn marks above the stove. Almost every surface has some seemingly insignificant but remarkably potent token of their life. Lauren points out the Russian nesting dolls that her family sent her for Christmas, touts a veritable library of gay erotica, and names every rock and plant in the vicinity. She pushes a pile of books into his arms to take home like she’s giving him homework.

“Have you heard of Djuna Barnes? _Ladies Almanack_. It’s sort-of a how-to guide for lesbians.” She shoots Theresa a grin as Theresa ladles noodles onto their plates. 

“She a cousin of yours?” Theresa asks, as blunt as ever. She holds out her pack of cigarettes but Bucky declines with a hand gesture.

“Not that I’m aware of, but the Barneses are quite—profligate.”

Theresa snorts. She hands out chopsticks, which Bucky looks at like a complete clown. “Oh, right,” she says with an eye-roll before she grabs a fork from the cutlery drawer and sets it next to his plate.

“Thanks.”

“You’ll never guess how long it took me to teach this one—” Theresa jerks her thumb in Lauren’s direction, as if she’s a spectator and not a vital part of the entire night. “—to use chopsticks.”

“The important thing is,” Lauren says, as she kisses Theresa on the head, “I can use them now.”

They dig into their food, as Theresa grumbles about the lack of meat and Lauren indulges her, while at the same time trying not to offend Bucky. She has brought her own wine out and they’re both teetering past the edge of tipsy.

“Luckily Korean cuisine is quite easy to vegetarian-ize,” Lauren says.

“I’m not offended, really,” Bucky says. “It’s kind of you to host me at all.”

“Well, you are Theresa’s favorite employee.”

Bucky laughs, shocked. “I’m what now?”

Theresa turns a hilarious shade of red, and Lauren joins in Bucky’s laughter. “I guess I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

“Well, the cat’s outta the fuckin’ bag now,” Theresa says, and starts laughing too. “Marv was an asshole, anyway. Louisa’s a bitch. Graeme’s a pushover. You’re the only one who knows how to get a good story outta someone, even if all they think you’re doing is taking their picture.”

Bucky ducks his head and scratches the back of his neck. Turns out all he needed to get Theresa’s opinion was a bottle of wine and one night with the missus. The food is fantastic, and Bucky feels full and satiated in a way that only comes with good company.

The front door opens and whatever Bucky was going to say next evaporates when a man walks in. 

“Oh, Paul!” Lauren says, as if she had forgotten he was someone with keys to their house. “This is Bucky from the _Democrat_. Bucky this is Paul, our—um.” 

“Third,” Theresa supplies. “Like a complex marriage.”

“Yes,” Lauren continues. “It’s—well—”

“A lesbian-centric—”

“He’s kind of like our partner—“

“—semi-nonsexual three-way.”

“I mostly try and keep them out of prison. Hi,” Paul says, holding his hand out to Bucky. He has the kindest brown eyes Bucky’s ever seen, and a stunning head of hair. “I’m Paul.”

“Bucky,” he says, taking Paul’s hand. “Apparently I’m Theresa’s favourite.”

“He was a freebie,” Theresa says, which starts another round of laughter.

* * *

_No one knows who I am here_ , Bucky writes, taking long pauses to gather his thoughts. _No one knows who I am anywhere. I’m not James Buchanan Barnes, Steve Rogers’s Best Friend. I’m just some guy with a camera. You talked about no one knowing you before—well, no one knows me now. I can walk around without being yoked to your star. It has its advantages, believe it or not. It’s not like any soldiers treated me any different when they knew you stormed that factory for me, but—I don’t know. I guess it makes me feel special that you’re the only one. I’m just yours. I always have been. And you’re my sun. The Russians call it “solnyshko,” little sun, according to my new friend Lauren. And maybe one day I’ll have the guts to tell you these things instead of writing them in a letter I’ll never send. But who knows? Maybe we’ll both die young and it won’t matter. They’ll print your name in books, and history will forget me. I’m fine with it. Really, I promise. I’m fine with it all._

* * *

Bucky hears it on the news first.

“In an act of courage and bravery, Captain America piloted a plane full of explosives into the North Atlantic Ocean and disappeared. This is a terrible day in our history, but we must remember what he fought for: freedom and liberty for—”

Becca snaps her head up from where she’s napping on the couch, and Stella jumps up, woofing. Something must have startled them. It’s not until his bare feet hit the grass that he even realizes he’s moving. He stumbles and falls. He reaches his arm out to stop himself but his arm isn’t there. He reaches for a rifle but the rifle isn’t there. Hydra must be descending on him again because he’s been shot, and there’s a terrible noise coming out of the woods. Stella must hear it too because she howls in unison.

He puts his hands around his stomach to protect himself and stop the bleeding. His heart beats so hard and so loud in his chest it’s going to rip right out of him. He has to get to the tree line, but he can’t move. There’s no blood. That sound is coming from him. 

That sound is coming from him.

* * *

—a month longer than he should have, recovering on base while Steve fretted over him, because that was his life now, he was a damsel in need of fretting over. Sleeping beside Steve, their backs to each other or once, when it was cold enough to use it as an excuse, fitting together like spoons with Steve’s arm slung over his waist and his knees tucked into the hollow Bucky’s made. Steve’s body heat warmed him up enough that he stopped shivering so much. 

All the maiming and killing in the name of a country he never felt particularly attached to couldn’t take away how he wanted Steve that night, how terrified he was of it, of doing something stupid like turning around in Steve’s arms to kiss him, how badly he ached, deep in the core of him, in places no one else could ever—

—didn’t want to mope around the campsite like a depressed mascot while Steve was off saving the world. Didn’t want to hang around doing nothing, being good for nothing, waiting for Steve to come back, if he came back at—

—15 years and two days old when he first figured it out. Maybe the reason no one cared was because he was handsome, smart, and born to a rich family. Maybe they thought he could make something of himself. Maybe they thought he wasn’t a fairy, so it didn’t matter if he fucked around with guys, because everyone did. As long as you weren’t taking it, as long as you didn’t belong to another fella, no one gave a shit. He understood this as though someone had explained it to him, even though no one ever did. He just picked it up from hearing conversations he was too young to understand but internalized anyway. He might be queer, but he wasn’t one of _those_ queers. He could still get married, because women wanted him, and he could still have a family, and no one would ever have to know he liked guys. That’s a hell of a thing to lay on a 15— 

—split knuckles pissing out blood like a fire hydrant in June, running in rivulets down his arms and staining the grey of his shirt. It wasn’t until Bucky brought him back home where he could chastise Steve properly that they stopped bleeding. Bucky cleaned him up with Sarah’s emergency kit, the one she kept well-stocked for just these occasions, and fumed the whole time. He was so angry that even his intent to chastise fell by the wayside. 

“Buck, listen—” Steve started, before he gave up. Bucky fussed over him, frowning at his hands to make Steve understand, to make him get it. It wasn’t just bruises and split knuckles he was dealing with, it was his fucking life. 

Steve sat on the kitchen counter, watching Bucky curiously, and Bucky stood between his knees. It was only when he looked up that he realized how close they were, how close their faces were, and how weird it was that Steve looked down at him for a change. Bucky ran the wet washcloth down Steve’s arms as gingerly as he could. Being mad wouldn’t stop him from taking care of Steve. Nothing could stop him from taking care of Steve.

Electricity hung in the air between them like the lit fuse of a firework right before it reaches the base. He lifted Steve’s right hand and let it hang as he applied the Band-Aids. Bucky’s hands were shaking with adrenaline, and his stomach roiled with a feeling of impending doom. One day Steve was going to get himself killed, and Bucky would either be there to see it or he wouldn’t. Either way, he wouldn’t be able to stop it. Pre-emptive regret mixed with fear, and he felt the brim of fresh tears in his eyes. 

And then he looked in Steve’s eyes and saw a gentle curiosity, as though he was seeing Bucky for the first time. Bucky wanted to look away; Steve shouldn’t see him like this. He was close to panicking or crying or both, and he was supposed to be the strong one, the one who took care of them. Even at 17, he knew it would be his lifelong duty to take care of Steve, and he welcomed it. But right then he was too scared to be able to hide it. As Steve looked at him so gently and so curiously, Bucky couldn’t withstand the fear that he wouldn’t be able to stop Steve from dying. 

Bucky knew it before then—what he felt. At Steve’s hospital bed the year before, when Steve had almost died, Bucky knew. He didn’t just love Steve; he was _in love_ with Steve, and it was as permanent as Steve’s broken nose that never healed properly. It was as permanent as the scars all over Steve’s body from the fights Bucky finished for him. It was as permanent as Steve’s impending death. And It was a mark of Cain on Bucky’s soul, and he knew then that he would outlive Steve, and that was his curse. By fight or by sickness, Steve would die, and Bucky would love him long after that, too. Bucky’s love would never stop, not until the earth ceased turning and the sun stopped in the sky. Not until the universe forgot them and the earth erased any trace of their existence. Nothing was as permanent, or as strong, as the love Bucky felt at that moment.

“I’d tell you to stop picking fights but I know you won’t,” Bucky said. He licked his lips and Steve watched that too.

“I gotta fight, Buck. I gotta stand up for what’s right.”

Bucky nodded. To love Steve was to love all of Steve. Steve’s hands, busted and bruised and bleeding; Steve’s refusal to die; Steve’s strong jaw, sharp enough to cut through the debris of Bucky’s mind; Steve’s fierce resistance to any injustice in the world; Steve’s soft, petal mouth. All of it was worth loving. 

Bucky glanced away and stepped back—

—taller than Bucky, even, no longer the scrappy alley cat but a bulldozer of a man. Every time Bucky looked at him, he was shocked anew by the transformation. Finally, everyone could see what Bucky had seen in him all along.

“You’re the new Steve, now,” he said, hardly daring to meet Steve’s eyes. When he did, he saw a sadness within them that echoed in his own heart.

“I’m still Steve,” he said, with that deep voice, like the rumble of the sea in a ship’s belly. “I’m always Steve.”

“You are, aren’t you?” Bucky’s sadness melted away. “You’re always Steve.”

Steve smiled then, again, for the first and millionth—

—and Steve’s sickly fear of not being good enough, or not being able to prove himself, well it was more overwhelming than his fear of dying ever was. Sometimes Bucky thinks Steve never actually cared about dying, except for how it would stop him from saving—

—the three days he spent sweating it out inside a tank as they marched across the land, delirious from the drugs they pumped into his body while he was on their operating table. They’d cut off his infected arm and shot him full of godknowswhat, and it didn’t leave him even when he was strong enough to get out of that tank—it just turned into something new. Once the fever broke, he was fighting fit again, and his arm healed in a month—record time, according to every nurse who popped their heads in the medical tent. They all wanted a look at Steve, and knew Bucky was the best way to get his attention. Where Bucky went, Steve was, so they took extra special care of him, and everyone made sure he was eating enough and sleeping well. It was the most looked after he’d ever been, and he hated every second of it.

He didn’t want extra pillows. What he really wanted was another kraut to shoot and to jerk off to the image of Steve in those shorts in peace. He didn’t want three square meals a day. What he really wanted was his arm back. What he really wanted was his Steve back. What he really wanted was to be back in Sarah’s apartment, patching Steve up, but this time saying all the things he was too weak and cowardly to say. Over that month, he would look up at Steve and know they would never get that moment back. And as he boarded the ship that took him back to New York, he gave Steve Rogers one last up-and-down in his dress uniform, looking like a real dandy, his medallions shining in the sun, his hair that chaffed wheat color, and his eyes perfect chips of cobalt, and Bucky let his long-repressed love carry him back across the sea.

* * *

“We won the war, Sergeant. It’s been six months, and not a moment goes by that I don’t think about the bravery and the sacrifice our soldiers made.” Agent Carter’s nails are as striking as they were the first time he met her. “Steve was instrumental in our last offensive against Hydra.” Her hair is loosely curled, not a strand out of place. “We wouldn’t have won the war without him.” She smiles tightly, as though this is painful for her to talk about.

Bucky says nothing. He returns to staring at the living room wallpaper like he can see Rorschach in the pattern. 

Becca sets a tray of tea and cookies down on the coffee table. Amy sleeps in John’s arms as he tries to be as inconspicuous as possible. 

“Thank you,” Agent Carter says, smiling at Becca. She takes a sip of her tea, although the heat still rises from it.

“It’s Bucky’s tea,” Becca says, pride evident in her voice. “He loves the stuff.”

“It’s very good. Although I dare say the English taught him a thing or two about tea.”

They’re talking about him as though he’s not there. 

“What do you want, Agent Carter?”

She clears her throat and sets her mug down, now half-finished. “I’ve come to offer you a job.”

He shifts in his seat. His limb hurts more and more lately. “With the army?”

“With the SSR. We have one lined up for you, should you want to take it.” 

He glances down at the empty dog bed by his feet. He doesn’t know where Stella is; one day he woke up and she was gone, like a thief in the night. The ones he loves have a habit of doing that.

“When do I start?”

“I’m taking a plane back to New York in two hours. I was hoping you would join me.”

Bucky nods. “I’ll start packing.” She stands as he does and follows him to his room. She hovers in the doorway as he pulls a duffle bag out and starts loading it up with clothes. 

“I have something for you. Steve asked me to deliver them back to you should anything happen to him. I wanted to bring them in person.”

She pulls a stack of letters from the inside of her jacket and holds them out. There are dozens of them, Bucky’s words come back to him after all this time. On top is the last letter he sent, unopened.

A long moment passes when nothing happens in his brain. He takes them and puts them in his top dresser drawer where the other letters are. “Thanks,” he says, his voice rough with disuse. He shoulders his bag and waits for her to leave so he can too, but she hesitates in the doorway.

“Steve would want the best for you. That’s all I want, too.”

He looks into the pietersite of her eyes, and she looks back with strength and determination. “Okay,” he says, and satisfied, she turns. He closes the door behind him, shutting away the life he built here, the friends he made, and the things he lost along the way.


	3. 1945

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter follows the plot of Agent Carter Season 1.

Bucky’s first day in the Strategic Scientific Reserve starts with a briefing that spells out how Howard Stark is, according to Chief Dooley, “Not only in contempt of Congress, but also a fugitive of the law.” Bucky is impressed the man can achieve so much in one day. 

Agent Carter speaks up, because of course she does. “I knew Howard Stark during the war. His help was invaluable. He may be a great many things, but he’s not a traitor.”

Dooley bites back, and some gorilla makes a crack about Carter getting around. Another guy defends her, and they start a back and forth for Carter’s honor that Bucky watches with detached curiosity. His name is Sousa, Bucky learns when Carter stops him from leaving the conference room, and he’s not any more welcome to defend her than Bucky would be, if he were inclined to do so.

Bucky gets a badge, a gun, his own desk, and orders. But since he’s spent a year and a half not taking anyone’s orders but Becca’s and Theresa’s, and his orders are to go over surveillance photos from several downtown clubs Howard was seen to frequent before the war, he’s disinclined to follow them. 

Instead, he spends the day chatting with people. The great thing about being a reporter is that he doesn’t need to say much to get people to spill their life stories. A missing arm helps, because people see it and guess right that he was in the war and that sparks a conversation. By the time he’s allowed to go home, he’s met 11 phone operators, two reception staff, and all the guys in the bullpen. 

Carter comes over to him as he’s chatting to Sousa, because it’s either get a last word in or go home to an empty apartment. He wants to ignore her, but she waits until there’s a break in the conversation to speak.

“James, would you like to join me for coffee?”

Even though being friends with Carter would be a social death sentence in the eyes of any man in this office, that’s not why Bucky hesitates. He’s never liked her, because of reasons he doesn’t delve into, but then he’s never given her a chance. She waits patiently again, a pleasant smile on her perfectly symmetrical face.

“Sure,” he says, which is how he finds himself at the automat around the corner, sipping on a lukewarm coffee as Carter talks him through the requirements of the job.

“I’m afraid they’re not exactly easy on Sousa. He’s one of the best men we have, but they overlook him to focus more on, well, non-disabled agents. Thompson’s capable, but he does have a rather brash personality.”

Bucky shrugs his good shoulder. “Doesn’t bother me.”

“Can I ask what you want to get out of this? You must have had some reason for coming along with me.” 

There’s a newspaper sitting beside Carter’s shoulder she hasn’t touched since she sat down. The waitress comes over to top up Bucky’s coffee and proclaims at the picture on the front page, the red, white and blue flag, the star on his chest, “You could eat him with a spoon. Can I getcha anything else, English?”

“No thanks, Angie, I’m fine.”

Angie turns her gaze to Bucky. “What about you, handsome?”

He smiles up at her. “I’m good here.” He can feel Carter looking at him and smiles wider just to prove a point. All the time he spends being nice to other people means he’s not spending it on her, and she should know it.

“Alrighty roo,” Angie says, and leaves them to their awkward conversation.

Bucky expects Carter to keep the conversation going, and she does. “Any particular reason you took the job?” she prompts.

“I guess I was sick of doing nothing when my country needed me,” he lies.

Carter purses her red lips. “This country owes you a huge debt.”

He pushes his spoon around in his coffee for a minute.

“During the war,” Carter continues, with a note of melancholy, “I had a sense of purpose, a job to do. It’s different now. There’s even less space for a woman.” Bucky says nothing. Clearly, she has a lot to get off her chest, and if he thinks of her as just another person to interview, he can bear it. “If there’s anything more I can do for you, please let me know.”

He glances up to see her imploring face, as though she’s desperate to get in his good books. Why is not exactly unclear, but he figured she would have better things to do with her time. She doesn’t exactly expend a lot of effort trying to plead with men. She usually punches them in the face. 

He clears his throat. “Why are you doing this—taking a chance on me?” 

She smoothes her hands over the table, as though smoothing out an invisible tablecloth. It’s the most human gesture he’s seen from her. “If I trusted anyone, I trusted Steve, and if Steve trusted anyone, he trusted you. You’re the best. The Army says you’re the best. Steve said you’re the best. And I believe both of them.”

He unclenches his jaw to speak. “Well, I hope I won’t let you down.” 

She smiles again. “I assure you, you won’t.” As she grabs her paper, a napkin falls to the floor with the words “Meet me in the alley in 5 minutes” written on it. Bucky and Carter share a suspicious look.

As they exit into the alleyway, a tall, thin man approaches and says in an English accent, “Ms Carter, Mr Barnes.”

“Do we know you?” Carter asks, as she and Bucky glance at each other. 

“We haven’t had the pleasure, yet. You two are coming with me.”

Moving in perfect synchronicity, Carter punches him in the face and Bucky has his pistol out and pressed to the man’s head before he can get up. A car careens out of nowhere and speeds towards them, Carter pulling out her own pistol and shooting out the front tire before it crashes into a pile of boxes.

“Howdy, pals,” Howard Stark says, jumping out of the car. “Did you miss me?”

* * *

“Bad babies,” Bucky and Carter repeat in unison, Bucky from the front seat and Carter from the back. 

“Inventions too dangerous for anyone,” Howard says, “even my friends.” 

Bucky twists in his seat to watch Howard in the back, while keeping an eye on the English guy driving. 

“Somebody cleaned me out. A couple of weeks later, my bad babies, they start turning up on the black market.” Howard always has an air of insouciance about him, as though his inventions turning up in the wrong hands is a mere inconvenience and not catastrophic in terms of the damage it could wreak or the men it could make rich. 

“But why run?”

“Apparently it’s not too much of a stretch to say I’d sell my inventions and pocket the money.”

Bucky snorts. “You do sell your inventions.”

Howard shrugs and pulls a face like, _you gotta do what you gotta do_. “Can’t sell these ones on anything but the black market without going to prison.”

“That’s a real paradox,” Bucky says.

“Tell me about it. The SSR is looking for the wrong guy. I’m going to need someone on the inside, someone I can trust. Peg, there’s no one I trust more than you,” Howard says to Carter. He turns to Bucky. “And you too, Barnes, I guess.”

“Fuck you too, Stark,” Bucky says, but he’s already on board. 

They pull up at the docks, where the water is still and as black as the night. Howard jumps in his boat and explains the danger of the situation—that this could mean prison for both of them. Bucky listens while he stands back and watches the water, disturbed from where the boat knocks gently against the wood of the dock. He doesn’t care about prison. What’s prison compared to living the way he lives? Every day is a struggle already. Every day he has to figure out what to eat for dinner.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Peggy asks.

Howard smirks. “Absolutely. I know I can count on you. And Barnes, well. I hope bringing you into this doesn’t bite me in the ass.” 

“Come on.” Bucky likes Howard. They’re alike in ways that would land Bucky in prison and hardly affect Howard, rich as he is. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me since I got blown up in Italy.”

Howard tips his imaginary hat and starts the boat’s engine, zooming off into the night, his hair tousled by the wind. Bucky watches Carter watch the boat disappear before she turns to him. “Right then. Shall we?” She leads them up the stairs and back to the car, where Mr Jarvis, Howard’s driver, hands them both business cards.

“Ms Carter, Mr Barnes. What now?”

“Now, Mr Jarvis,” Carter says, without a glance at Bucky, “we go to work.”

* * *

Bucky skirts the dance floor until Carter comes back down, her handbag clutched tight to her chest, her lipstick smudged. She’s taken care of Spider Raymond with ease, the way a highly skilled agent would. She’s way too good for the SSR. Bucky spent the last ten minutes skirting the dance floor, clocking the agents that followed Spider Raymond’s trail. 

“Let’s get out of here,” she says, taking his hand. “I have the nitramene, but we need to disarm it.” They evade their fellow G-Men with ease, Bucky’s hand around Carter’s shoulders, and make it back to Carter’s apartment. Her roommate is awake, sniffles loud even before they enter the apartment. 

“Peg, is that you?”

Peggy gives Bucky a dangerous look as he closes the door behind them. “Er, yes, hi Colleen.”

Colleen sneezes into her handkerchief but perks up as soon as she sees Bucky. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company. I’ll get out of your hair—”

Peggy goes to push Colleen back down on the pullout bed that takes up half the studio apartment. “You will do no such thing. James came over for a nightcap, that’s all. We didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

Bucky looks around for the supplies: bucket, bicarb soda, vinegar, bourbon. The apartment is well stocked for everything they need, but knowing Carter, she has all bases covered. Even bases they would need to disarm a bomb. They go into the bathroom, which is almost too cramped for both of them to fit, and they go to work. Bucky mixes the chemicals and Carter disarms it, and by the time they’re done, her hair is a flat mess and Bucky can’t see through all the smog. 

They hear a crash in the next room, and Bucky silently motions for Carter to stay there while he checks it out. “Colleen,” she whispers, but Bucky puts his hand to his lips. He pulls out his pistol and stalks into the bedroom where a man stands above the bed. Colleen is motionless, a bullet hole marking her creaseless forehead. As the man turns, Bucky brings the butt of his gun down and knocks him out. He slumps to the floor, as motionless as the woman he killed. 

Carter rushes into the room, takes one look at the unconscious attacker, and then at Colleen. “Colleen?” She sits on the edge of the bed, overcome with emotion as she sobs. 

“We need to get him out of here before the cops turn up,” Bucky says. It’s not that he wants to interrupt Carter’s moment, but if they don’t get out of there soon they’re going to have to answer a lot of questions about why they’ve got a disarmed bomb, an unconscious man, and a dead body on their hands. 

Carter wipes her eyes and stands, all business again. “Okay then, let’s go.” She collects the few items that can be traced back to her, including the nitramene remains, and shoves a couple of outfits into a bag. The transformation from grieving friend to SSR agent who withstood the war is absolute, and she leads the way out of the apartment with her head held high.

They bundle Colleen’s killer into the back of Carter’s car, and Bucky directs her where to go. He almost stayed at the Y when he first arrived back in New York, but Becca convinced him to get an apartment to reduce the urge to run that was pent up under his skin. The fear of being hunted that kept him up at night hadn’t left him during the past two years; since being in Greenwich Village it had only metastasized into omnipresent anxiety. Also, an SSR agent getting arrested for sodomy wouldn’t be a good look. There wasn’t a wealth of options in Shelbyville, but now he’s back in New York he has to at least try not to be jailed, or end up at the bottom of the East River. 

The attacker is still unconscious when they turn up at Bucky’s building, Carter parking on a side street. She helps Bucky get him out of the car, and Bucky slings the man’s arm around his shoulders. Carter gets the other side and they march him through the slight drizzle into the building.

“Doll, when you said you could drink us both under the table,” Bucky says, his voice too loud, too slurred, “I didn’t think you meant literally.”

Carter picks up what he’s doing immediately. “What, a doll can’t handle her liquor like one of the boys?” she asks, in a perfect American accent. 

Bucky stops to wave at the concierge. “Hey, George,” he calls, as George snaps himself awake. 

“Bucky,” George says, straightening his hat and waving them away. 

Luckily for them, Laurence’s shift ended a half-hour ago, and they make it to the fourth floor unimpeded by an elevator operator. The attacker is just starting to rouse as they enter Bucky’s apartment, and by the time they tie him to a chair, he’s awake enough to question.

He watches them with a silent fury but he doesn’t make a move to either escape or crunch the little pill that would kill him, so it would appear that trick of Hydra’s went down with the Red Skull. Or he’s not Hydra, and in that case, they have bigger problems.

Carter’s rage had been simmering on the car ride over, and now she lets it out. She slaps the attacker hard enough that the chair legs lift off the ground. 

“Who are you?”

The attacker spits out a glob of blood but says nothing.

Carter slaps him again. 

“Okay, okay,” Bucky says, pushing her arm down. “Look at this.” He reaches towards the attacker’s neck and pulls his shirt down enough to show the X scarring his throat. “He’s mute.”

“Search him,” Carter says. “Maybe he’s got something on him.”

Bucky obeys, digging through the attacker’s pockets until he finds a small device. There’s a button on the underside but nothing else that points to what it could be used for. 

“Give me that.” Carter takes it and looks it over. “Oh, I know what this is.” She presses it to the attacker’s throat and holds down the button. “Who do you work for?”

The man doesn’t say anything. 

Bucky presses the muzzle of his pistol to the man’s head as Carter says, “I’ll ask again. Who do you work for?”

The man opens his mouth and, with the aid of the device, says, simply, “Leviathan is coming.”

Carter and Bucky exchange a look. “Who’s Leviathan?”

The man doesn’t say anything else. After half an hour, with blood running down his face, missing teeth, and broken fingers, the only thing the man says is, “Leviathan is coming.” 

Bucky cleans the blood off his hands and the butt of his gun with a wet rag, while Carter pulls a hair tie out of her purse and ties her hair, now soaked with sweat, out of her face. As though by practiced rote, she rinses the pliers in Bucky’s bathroom sink while he cleans up the blood that spilled on the floor around the man’s feet. He doesn’t think about why it’s suddenly okay for him to torture a man half to death when he can’t even eat a slab of steak. He doesn’t think about why he found it okay to torture and kill in the name of his country when he was at war. He was once told that Hitler was a vegetarian. He doesn’t think about who he’s killing and torturing for now.

“Well,” Carter says, dabbing at the blood on her dress with a cloth. It’s no use; the blood won’t come out. The dress is ruined. Bucky feels a stab of pity, as though the dress is a living organism that suffered through its own life and death. He turns his attention to Carter’s face. “What shall we do with him?”

“Take him out back and shoot him,” Bucky says, only slightly joking. 

“Maybe not in a back alley, where he will be found. A forest, perhaps. Or somewhere we can bury him.”

A dribble of blood spills out of the man’s lips and hits his knee. He hasn’t been able to lift his head himself for some time.

“Adirondacks?” 

Carter nods. “Sounds fine to me. Let’s get him cleaned up.”

* * *

By the time they arrive back in New York, it’s 7:00 in the morning. They go back to Bucky’s to change, and then Jarvis drives them into work. When he parks under the building, Bucky takes a moment to sit in the back of the car, unmoving, the weight of what they’ve done no heavier than anything he faced in Europe.

“What is it?” Carter asks. She had been stoic and calm the whole night, but in the few minutes it took them to drive in, the harsh light of morning lit up the wetness of her eyes.

Bucky narrows his eyes. “That was… a lot, what we just did. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some feelings about it. Not—” he starts, as she opens her mouth. “—that you’re ruled by emotions. But if you needed to talk about it, you can talk about it with me. Preferably when we’re not sitting under the Strategic Scientific Reserve building.”

Jarvis is appropriately silent. Carter nods, a grateful smile sliding across her face. “Coffee again tonight, then?”

“Sure.”

She inhales and exhales slowly, and Bucky pauses with his hand on the door, sensing the moment isn’t over. “You showed remarkable reserve last night, Sergeant. I know that Steve would—” 

Bucky is out of the car in two seconds, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

Bucky spends the day destroying as much evidence as he can without being caught and tried for treason. Carter falls asleep at her desk, and then gets assigned phone duty for the rest of the day, which she doesn’t seem too bothered by. Bucky gets the feeling this is the one day she wouldn’t be.

He understands what the Army saw in her. Like Bucky, she has a steely resolve that lends itself well to the field. She can handle herself with decorum and grace, and she has skills that are necessary for combat, both weaponry and physical. 

Despite this, he still doesn’t like her. He doubts he ever will. The undercurrent of his contempt runs like blood being pumped through a vein, a roaring current that ends only when the vein is opened and the blood is spilled. He can taste it at the back of his mouth like soot in the windpipe of a chimney. He feels bloated on this—this contempt, this disdain, this scorn—and yet he can’t give it up.

He pushes her feet off her desk and she wakes with a start. He cocks his head in the direction of the door. “Come on. Coffee.” 

“Right, yes.” Carter smooths down her skirt before she bundles her coat and handbag into her arms. She stalks out of the office as though embarrassed she’s been caught sleeping, but it’s not like the other guys are going to start talking even worse about her. It’s just not possible.

At the diner, Angie is working again, and she and Carter make eyes at each other as though Bucky’s not even there. He’s not used to being ignored in favor of other people. He’s _still_ not—

He shakes his head. _Get it together, Barnes_. Behind Carter, Jarvis drops into the booth, facing away from Bucky but still within hearing distance.

When Angie leaves, Carter turns to him. A little bit of her reserve falters. Jarvis taps the tabletop with a spoon and Carter stiffens. 

“I heard you had quite the ordeal last night,” Jarvis says. Bucky was never that fond of the English, but now he’s fucking surrounded by them. It’s some sick irony that he probably deserves. 

“Yes, quite,” Carter says. Her eyes start to well up and Bucky shifts in his seat. “It’s not easy, burying friends.”

“I’m sorry to appear callous, but is there any way it can be traced back to you?”

Carter shakes her head, then seems to realise Jarvis can’t see her. “No, my name wasn’t on the lease. She didn’t have any family, she—” A tear spills down her cheek, her penny-colored eyes brimming over. “I seem to have a habit of losing people closest to me.” She catches Bucky’s eye. “Perhaps ‘losing’ is too nice a word. I get them killed.”

Bucky can feel the ice in his own gaze, but he maintains eye contact until she looks away.

“When Howard came to me, I was damn happy to see him. I’d been wallowing in it since the war, wondering why no one would give Agent Peggy Carter a shot. So I grabbed the chance, but I mucked it up. And now Colleen is dead because of me.”

Jarvis produces a handkerchief like he’s doing a magic show and she takes it, dabbing at the tears spilling from her eyes.

Bucky taps her handbag where it’s sitting on the table, the nitramene inside. “We need to know where this came from.”

Peggy straightens up immediately, slipping back into her Agent role. “Yes, we can’t just walk it into SSR Headquarters.”

Jarvis puts his hat back on and stands, holding his hand out to her. “I may know a gentleman.”

* * *

After their talk with Dr Vanko, they head back to SSR and do exactly what Carter said they couldn’t do. They abscond to the records room like ghosts doing a haunting, except maybe they’re the ones being haunted instead. They need the vita-ray detector, and the only one they know of is in the box with the dead man’s stuff. As soon as Carter opens the box, a look of deep anguish crosses her features. Bucky glances over his shoulder at the door, in case anyone is coming. He’s never considered himself emotionless, but he did think different of her. Not emotionless, per se, but at least more put together than crying every other minute. She’s surprised him in some ways, but disappointed him in others.

When she takes out the file, he clears his throat, but she doesn’t hear him. She’s lost in her thoughts with her fingers touching the contents inside. Bucky glances back again and finds Sousa walking towards them. Despite their similarities, Sousa doesn’t have enough to an edge to interest Bucky more than the casual conversation at their desks. However, he is annoyingly good at his job and very personable. When he walks into the room, he coughs and Carter rouses from her reverie with a jump. 

“I was just looking at Steve’s file—”

Sousa waves his hand. “It’s okay.” He tells an anecdote about almost dying that Bucky politely ignores. This is their moment, and good for them. Carter seriously needs to expend at least some energy on something other than work and bailing Howard Stark out of his various messes. But at the end of the day, Sousa is still a man working in the same office as a woman no one wants to give a chance to, and being friendly with her means losing the respect of his coworkers, which he’s worked so hard to gain. 

Bucky doesn’t give a shit about this job, this office, the SSR, this country, any of it. At this point, he’s just wasting time until something better comes along. He does, however, care about Howard Stark the smallest amount, because like Carter said, Howard is a good man, and he performed good acts during the war. Bucky owes him a debt for those acts. He’ll help pull Howard out of the fire of crimes against the State and into the frying pan of whatever chaos he gets himself into next. And he’ll do it while associating with Carter, because he doesn’t give a shit about his coworkers, either.

But Sousa’s okay. Bucky gives him a nod and a gruff smile as Carter gathers the vita-ray detector and they shuffle out, back into the warm light of the world beyond dead heroes and forgotten plans.

* * *

The vita-rays lead them to the Roxxon Refinery, and Bucky, Carter, and Jarvis stand with their mouths open as the building implodes in on itself. 

“Holy cow,” Bucky says. 

Another mute, Leet Brannis, is currently shoved into the trunk of Jarvis’s car from when Bucky knocked him over the head and he and Carter dragged him out, so at least they have that. They drive him back to Howard’s manor, all of them silent in the face of a sobering realization of what Howard’s Bad Babies can actually do. 

Brannis spews his guts and tells them about how Leviathan is moving into America, but that he’s gone solo with the hope of making some money off of Howard Stark’s inventions, but that’s as far as his knowledge goes. They don’t even have to rough him up, and they march him into SSR Headquarters where Sousa and Young are working the night shift and the Chief is drinking at his desk.

“We heard about the explosion,” Carter explains, as Thompson interrogates Brannis. “Or well, whatever it was that happened. We rushed down there and found him.”

Dooley does an approximation of beaming, which is not frowning as hard. “Great work, Agents. Have a drink on me.”

They don’t have a drink. Carter doesn’t seem to, or at least she doesn’t go to bars, and Bucky can guess the reasons for that. They instead head back to the Automat and celebrate with apple pie. 

“It’s nice when an adventure doesn’t end in someone dying,” Carter says. She’s smiling, and it’s an actual smile, not the thing she wears whenever men talk to her. Bucky might be the only man on her level that she willingly spends time with.

Bucky knocks his coffee cup against hers. The memory of drinking in solidarity with Theresa on New Year’s Eve surfaces in his mind before he shoves it back down into a small box inside himself that he doesn’t intend on opening again. 

“I suppose you need somewhere to stay.”

Carter looks away, her brow furrowed. “It would appear that way.”

Bucky takes a sip of his coffee before he speaks. “My building always has vacancies. There are a couple of free apartments on my floor. We could,” he pauses, “you know, have each other’s backs.”

Carter brightens immediately. “That’s a brilliant idea. I wish I’d thought of that before moving in with Colleen, then she wouldn’t have died because of me.” Like a lightbulb, she dims. Bucky can’t handle how she operates, shifting gears so quickly it makes him nauseous. 

“She didn’t die because of you. She died because of Leviathan.”

Peggy glances up from her coffee cup with an almost pleading look on her face. He’s never seen her be emotionally honest with any of the other agents, and it makes him uncomfortable. She shouldn’t rely on him for comfort, because he has so little of it. Like pity, he doesn’t have much for himself, and none for anybody else. 

She must recognize this because she changes tack. “I suppose the reason you’re not asking me to move into your spare room is because you want plausible deniability.” Her smile is wry, and it almost cracks his armor. 

“You can if you want. If you’re going down, feel free to take you with me.”

Her next smile is bright and shows the two rows of her perfectly straight, brilliant teeth.

* * *

She moves in that night, which is easy considering she has only one bag that was stashed in Stark’s Chevrolet. She takes Bucky’s spare room, and over the next few days they get used to being in each other’s space. When he gives it any amount of thought, his brain screams at him it’s such a bad idea it makes the Hindenberg look like it was designed by Da Vinci himself. Then he has to journal for several hours to stop himself from physically pushing her out of the apartment. 

It’s better this way, he reasons, because she could get hurt, and they both made a promise to save Howard. If she dies, it’s on Bucky’s watch. Besides, it’ll be easier to try them both and then Bucky won’t have the guilty conscience of surviving a hanging while Carter swings.

Three months into the Howard Stark investigation, Sousa takes Jarvis in for questioning, and Carter makes the bold move of sacrificing herself to save him. It’s more than Bucky would have done. A week later, they find the ship with all of Howard’s inventions on it and Jerome Zandow, the man who stole them. Carter orchestrates Sousa to find it, and when Krzeminski bites it she takes it hard. Too hard, considering he was, in her words, “a brute,” and not worth much more than the nickel alloy his badge is made out of.

“You can’t take it personally,” Bucky says, and it’s almost like they’re friends now. Are they friends? Did they become friends without him noticing? 

She pushes her plate away from her, glancing up at Angie as though she can find the answers through the power of gay love. He wonders if she even knows what she feels is attraction to the same gender, as clear as it is to Bucky. Maybe it’s only clear because he feels it himself. “I suppose you’re right. But damn it all, I wish I could do more.”

“Isn’t what you’re doing enough?” He hates how soft his voice is, how he can barely raise it to anymore more than a growl. He’s too soft-spoken, too soft, and the fact that he’s even trying to do right by Carter is proof of that. The attraction he feels, that gay love, that’s what makes him soft. And when he sees it on Carter—the way she looks at Angie—it makes him worse.

She turns to him with tears in her eyes. He’s seen her stoic, unconsolable, tearful, angry, and powerful. She’s a force to be reckoned with, Nike on her pedestal, wings unfurling.

“Not until we find who framed Howard. It’s not enough until we take down Leviathan for good, the way we took down Hydra.”

The name makes Bucky flinch, but he covers it by wiping his hand over his face. It’s been a long night, and he’s allowed to be tired. 

But he can’t let it get to him. There’s going to be more long nights ahead of him, just in case the last two years of them weren’t enough.

* * *

Young finds the car Jarvis reported stolen, and a hotel room key that fell out of the attacker’s pocket. Bucky and Carter exchange a look across the bullpen, but the fact that they bundled a dead man’s body into said car goes unnoticed. It all blows over anyway when the hotel room uncovers a self-typing typewriter that has Dooley flying halfway around the world to find out its secrets.

Howard blows back into town, talking about his inventions again, ducking in the backseat of his car as Jarvis drives and Bucky looks nonchalantly out the window instead of down at him. They play blackjack and make small talk about what they’ve been up to since the war. Mostly Howard’s been a sugar daddy to any high-class honey who comes his way, at least for a few days. Howard expresses, for the fourth time, how important it is to get his invention, the Blitzkrieg Button, back, because it could wipe out the power to an entire city. 

“Yeah, yeah, Stark, I hear you,” Bucky says, and it’s because it’s Howard, because Bucky barely trusts anything the guy says, he doesn’t take note of how he doesn’t trust what Howard’s saying now. 

When Carter comes through the door, she’s shaking and quiet. Her hair is out of place for once, as though she’s been running her hands through it.

“What’s in the vial, Howard?”

Bucky throws down his cards and stands.

Stark goes quiet too, and his voice turns pleading. “You know.”

Carter steps forward. Her voice is strong when she speaks. “I don’t. Tell me.”

As soon as Stark says, “Steve Rogers’ blood,” Carter punches him, and Bucky whips out his pistol to point it in his face. 

“Woah, hey, hey, hey,” Stark says from the floor, a hand in front of his bruised and bleeding face. For someone who designs weapons, he’s terrible at defending himself from them. 

Bucky’s hand is shaking. He couldn’t fire a proper shot if he wanted to, and he doesn’t, not really. He doesn’t want to kill Howard. He just wants to make a point. 

That doesn’t make him any less dangerous though. He puts his foot on Howard’s chest to keep him down.

“You lied to me,” Carter says, and her voice is shaking now, loud and sharp. 

“You hit me!”

“You don’t get to use my reaction to your lies as a reason for your lies.” Carter is crying now, and if Bucky could feel anything at this moment he would probably be crying too.

“I do. I know how much Steve meant to you because I know how much he means to me.” Howard drops his hand, looking frightened but not remorseful. Howard is so much more dangerous than he looks, but he’s not a fighter. He’s a liar, and Bucky can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth. “Both of you.” He launches into a soliloquy about growing up on the Lower East Side, how poor he was, as if that makes up for the damage he’s caused to millions of people, the damage he will cause if his inventions turn up in the wrong hands again. 

Leviathan is out for them now, all of them, but at that moment it doesn’t matter. Bucky’s numbness is the only thing that matters—he’s pushed it down, all of it, all of the things he feels, all of the love he gave, all of the years he lived, and how lonely and sad he is now, and now—

Howard is on his feet, pushing into Carter’s space. “Steve Rogers may not still be with us, but he can still save millions of people.”

Carter’s voice shakes as she says, “Steve Rogers dedicated his mind, his body, his life to the SSR and this country, not to your bank account.”

Bucky’s heartbeat pounds in his ears, ticking away in his chest like a bomb, ready to take go off and take everyone down with him. 

“You’re disgusting,” Peggy concludes before she heads for the door. “When I come back, you’ll be gone.” 

Bucky holsters his pistol as he heads out after her. She might do something reckless, and he can’t have her being reckless, not while his neck is on the line too. 

She turns back to him, fresh tears trailing down her cheeks. “James, don’t. I need to be alone.”

“Agent Carter, wait.”

As he reaches out for her—to do what, he’s not sure—a door opens next to them, and out traipses a woman in her mid-20s, blonde, with scary eyes. “Oh golly,” she says, putting a hand to her chest. “You scared me!”

“Right, well, we’ll be on our way,” Carter says, before the blonde speaks again.

“Oh, please don’t. I just moved here and I don’t know anyone yet. I’m from Iowa and it’s so different here. Everyone keeps to themselves.”

Carter clears her throat and Bucky watches her carefully. She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand, not making eye contact with either of them. “Nice to meet you,” he says to the blonde. “I’m James.”

“Dottie,” she says, holding out her hand for him to shake. There’s something about her Bucky doesn’t like, but now isn’t the time for finding out. She must notice Peggy’s tears because her face turns soft. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Carter says, not quite a snap. “It’s nice to meet you Dottie, but I was just going out for some fresh air. Alone,” she finishes pointedly. Bucky waits a minute while Dottie babbles on about the Empire State Building before he leaves too, stepping past her.

It’s not until he’s out in the cool night air that he can breathe again, that the pounding of his blood subsides to whimper and the tears welling up his eyes spill over. He doesn’t know about Iowa but at least here, in New York City, no one cares about a one-armed veteran crying under a lamppost.

* * *

Carter manages to finagle her way into Russia while Bucky stays back in the office to catch up on the work he pretends to do when he’s really doing anything else. Sousa’s at his desk, rifling through a box of papers. 

“Lost something?” Bucky asks. He’s not curious so much as bored. He already knows what Sousa’s lost.

“Yeah, some files. Dang, I could’ve sworn I left them here. Seems like everything is going missing these days. Last week I lost a file that I locked in my desk.”

Bucky tries to not laugh. “I noticed the same thing. My guess is it’s the secretaries. Didn’t think a place could be as disorganized as the Army but I guess I was wrong.”

“Not much a platoon of guys can do when they’ve spent three days in the rain and mud of a European battlefield,” Sousa grumbles, still rifling through the box. “I could’ve sworn—“

“What?”

“That blonde from the club, did you notice anything about her?” Sousa is so sincere that it almost breaks Bucky’s heart to toy with him, but that’s what he’s good at. Right now it’s his job to throw people off Stark’s scent, which includes himself and Carter too.

“Nothing that springs to mind.”

“You didn’t notice something like a scar on her shoulder?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Wish I could help you, pal, but I didn’t get a good look at those photos.”

“Yeah,” Sousa says, slumping back in his seat.

Dooley comes out of his office, stinking of scotch, and sees them both there. “You two aren’t on duty tonight. What the hell are you doing here?”

Sousa sighs. “Wish I knew.” 

Dooley keeps walking, but stops at Bucky’s desk. “Come on, Barnes. I got something for ya.”

They end up at a bar, because of course they do. Everyone in this city and everyone in the SSR has more problems than a bottle can cure but it doesn’t stop them from trying. Bucky can’t even get drunk anymore, but that doesn’t stop him from trying either. 

The Russian says, “Two hundred and forty-seven dead Russians massacred in a battle no one will take credit for.” Bucky’s ears prick up at “the Army and Howard Stark in a Russian cover-up.” The plot thickens every day. Someone wants Howard to burn, and Bucky’s not entirely convinced he shouldn’t. 

Apparently, Howard was there for the cleanup and gave it to a one-star General. Bucky gets a sick kind of pleasure to hear that the General gave it right back. After Dooley’s friend has shipped off for the night, Dooley doesn’t let Bucky go. Dooley’s drunk now, with a mean look in his eye that pins Bucky to his barstool.

“What’s your deal, Barnes? I know Stark was chummy with your pal Rogers.”

Bucky lets out a mirthless laugh. “Trust me, I don’t have any allegiance to Howard Stark.” 

“Carter was the first to jump to his defense.”

Bucky shrugs. He ducks Dooley’s gaze purely to seem respectful and looks down at his near-empty glass. Dooley motions to the bartender for two more. “Yeah, well. Carter has a habit of not keeping her mouth shut.”

“Speaking of,” Dooley starts, and Bucky can guess where this is going, “if two of my agents are—together—I gotta know about it.”

Bucky does meet Dooley’s eye then and sets his mouth in a straight line. “Truthfully, there’s nothing to tell. Carter may have her own motives for taking this job, but I’m just lucky to have one.” His teachers said he wouldn’t amount to anything just because his parents were rich, but look at him now. He’s lying right to the SSR Chief’s face, without a shred of guilt, and no conscience to speak of. 

Dooley narrows his eyes for a second before he sighs. “I guess I can figure out why you two are friendly.”

Bucky tips his empty glass in Dooley’s direction. “Misery and company.”

Dooley chuckles an honest-to-god chuckle. “Yeah, I know a little bit about that.” He launches into a story about his first week on the job as a new agent, and Bucky tunes him out while schooling his face into curious bemusement. 

After the story is over, he excuses himself before Dooley can get any more sentimental and hightails it back to his apartment where he can be alone while Carter is in Russia. As he’s walking to his door, Dottie appears as if out of nowhere to tap him on the shoulder.

“Jesus Christmas,” he says, pretending to be shocked.

“Oh! I didn’t mean to startle you. I have such a light tread, all my friends say I should wear a bell.” She smiles dopily, and waits for his response, as though all she knows are rote statements instead of conversation skills.

“Right,” Bucky says. “Are you having a good night?”

“Gee, it’s just swell. I saw the Empire State Building! I walked right past it and everything.” She stops again, peering at Bucky curiously with that piercing gaze. “I was wondering, would you like to get coffee?”

It’s a mark of how lonely he is that he actually considers it, but then he remembers that part of getting to know people is opening up about yourself. The horror show that is his current mental state isn’t fit for anyone to uncover; it’s less like a flower blooming in a barren wasteland, and more sewerage trapped under a New York City grate. After two years of celibacy, he’s learned how to say no to people. 

“Or a picture show? I hear _Brief Encounter_ is swell.”

This could be one of two things: either she’s just as lonely as he is, or she’s hiding something, and considering nothing and no one in his life is what they appear, he figures it’s the latter. 

“Another night, sweetheart.”

“Oh.” Her face falls, and it’s convincing enough that he almost feels bad. “That’s okay! Another night then.”

He offers her a brief smile before he closes the door behind him. Another night, then. He’ll tail her another night. For now, he just wants solitude and quiet.

Becca picks up the phone after two rings. “Hello, hello?”

“Hey, Becs.” He can’t help the smile that ruins his dour mood. He puts the phone between his head and shoulder and drops into his favorite armchair in the living room. 

“Oh, hey, chucklehead. I was just wondering what the hell you’ve been up to.”

Bucky looks down at the scars on his hand. “Nothing good.”

“Hmm, well. That makes me worried about you, but I know you wouldn’t tell me anyway.”

“I tell you things.”

“Not lately.” 

In the background, food bubbles on a stove and John tries to soothe Amy John’s cries. 

“Well, you wouldn’t like what I have to say.”

Becca tsks. “Have you thought about maybe I like to hear everything you have to say?”

“That’s a line and you know it,” he says, recalling an earlier conversation. “The work I’m doing here—it’s no good. I’m no good, not anymore.”

“Bucky—”

They’re interrupted by a knock at the door. 

“Hang on.” Bucky waits a beat. “Yeah, who is it?”

“Agents Young and Dreyfus from the SSR. It’s time to come in, sir.”

Bucky sighs. “Becs, I’m being arrested. I’ll call you back.”

* * *

Bucky is already under arrest and waiting in the briefing room when they march Carter in. Apparently they sent a whole team into the diner but she doesn’t have a scratch on her. She’s just pissed.

Bucky can’t say he really cares one way or the other. He’s been playing both sides for a while now, so it was only a matter of time before they caught him.

“Looks like we fucked up,” he says, and Carter rolls her eyes. 

“It would appear that way. Who knew they could be this organized?” Bucky chuckles and Carter continues, “What did you tell them?”

He shrugs. “That everyone overlooks the disabled vets and the women.”

“At least they learned that lesson.”

Jarvis joins them soon after with his bogus confession, and it’s when she’s admonishing him for getting them deeper into the shit that she notices Evchenko. Despite being a tall, balding Russian guy, it’s hard to notice him. They’ve been so caught up in their Howard Stark drama they didn’t think to look at the psychiatrist playing both sides, same as them. 

Through the window, Bucky can see the sun glinting off metal a few floors above them and across the street. A light flashes in Morse Code, and Carter pulls a pen and piece of paper from nowhere, writing down the message Evchenko taps out. Carter pulls Dooley, Sousa and Thompson into the briefing room with the promise of her real confession, and somehow manages to convince them to hear her out.

Dooley looks like his parents took his last stuffed teddy from him, but then he always looks like a version of that, so Bucky doesn’t take it personally. “I’m supposed to believe that both of you pulled off your own investigation without any of us noticing?”

Sousa looks aghast. “Why would you go to all that trouble instead of coming to us?”

Carter’s nostrils flare, a sign that’s she pissed again. “We conducted our own investigation because no one listens to us. We got away with it because no one looks at us. Because unless we have your reports, your coffee or your lunch, we’re invisible.”

Bucky should be past the point of aggrieved at being lumped in with Carter, but he still fights the urge to distance himself from her. “We knew Howard wasn’t a traitor, but we also knew we couldn’t convince any of the agents in here to believe us.”

Dooley looks at Bucky like Bucky has, of all things, disappointed him. “You should’ve come to us. It’s our job to uncover the truth.”

“You didn’t listen,” Carter says, a note of disgust evident in her voice.

“You should have convinced us,” Thompson says, as if it’s that simple. Bucky could punch the guy for being such an incompetent ass.

“It is our job to uncover the truth,” Bucky agrees, “and we did. Stark isn’t a traitor, but Evchenko is. We need to isolate him now. We can’t let him out of our sight.”

The three of them exchange a look. Carter’s trump card goes a long way to convince Dooley, Sousa, and Thompson to believe her, but Dooley bites it anyway. It’s hard to watch a man first jump through a 5th-story window and then explode into bits because of a self-sustaining heat source, but it clears their names. 

Carter, of course, takes it as personally as she can, before she sets her mind on the task of finding Evchenko and stopping Leviathan. And then another massacre: eyes gouged out, bones broken, the smell of blood and shit in the movie theatre—it’s enough to turn Bucky’s stomach. 

“Howard’s inventions did this,” Carter says, disbelieving, as if this is the thing that tips her over the edge. Bucky is rooted to the spot; he is resolute, unflinching in the face of tragedy. He’s seen too much, been through too much, to be surprised by the worst in people. “I didn’t know he would be capable of this.”

“If it helps, he probably didn’t intend for this gas to kill people.”

Carter chews on a perfectly manicured fingernail, looking into the hospital room where Sousa is resting. Bucky hasn’t been around this many bodies since the war. He turns away, watches as the nurses go by in their pretty uniforms with their hair pinned back. He gets a whiff of 12-hour shift sweat and perfume, something so sweet in such a desolate place. One of the nurses smiles at him, flashing crooked, pearly white teeth. He flashes his own crooked teeth back.

Of course, Howard wants a public declaration of his innocence and of course, it turns to shit when Evchenko—also known as Fenhoff, a master manipulator and Hydra agent—and Dottie Underwood, that piercing-eyed waif, kidnap him. Bucky can’t fly a plane, so Jarvis goes up, and he and Carter take down Fenhoff and Dottie between them. Dottie puts a fight, but with Bucky’s full weight crushing her windpipe, she suffocates to death in minutes. 

They find the two microphones and sync the frequencies—one to Howard and one to Jarvis. It’s Carter who gets through to Stark. Her voice trembles as she pleads with Howard across the line. “Howard, you must hear me. You must come back.”

“I’m bringing Cap back, Peg,” Stark says, cheerfully. He has the hope of a man shipping out for war, ready to take on the world by himself. Bucky can’t relate. He had a panic attack when he read his enlistment form, standing barefoot in their kitchen, knowing full well that once he shipped out he would never come back.

“Howard—Howard, Steve is gone. He died over six months ago.” She’s near inconsolable, and Bucky wouldn’t know how to help her if he tried. It’s tearing at him from the inside, his thumb on the button of the second microphone.

“All I’ve done my whole life is create destruction. Project Rebirth was—he was the one thing I’ve done that brought good into this world.”

Bucky wants to tell Jarvis to fire just to shut Howard up and put an end to this—this reimagining, this horrible retelling. It’s digging up all his secrets, all the things he wants to bury until he’s dead and gone, god help him. It’s suffocating him to death, the way he did to Dottie.

“Howard, I know you loved him. I loved him too, but this won’t bring him back. Steve is gone. We have to move on, all of us. As impossible as that may sound, we have to let him go.” She turns to Bucky, and her face is drenched in tears. He can only imagine what his own looks like: eyes red-rimmed, face wet, snot dribbling out of his nose like his allergies in the spring. Despite his gasping breaths, he can’t bring enough air into his asthmatic lungs.

Bucky’s back breaks in places, the memory of Steve and Steve’s body breaking through him like a vine growing out of cracked cement pavement. Steve is here, Steve is in him. 

Carter’s shoulders slump as she turns to the other radio, but she perks up again as Howard’s voice calls out over the line.

“He was good before I got ahold of him, huh?”

Bucky drops to the floor as Howard says he’s turning around. He brings his knees up to his chest and pushes his face into them, rubbing his wet cheeks on the material of his trousers. Carter drops down next to him and pulls him apart to put her arms around him, grasping him in a tight hug. They share that moment, just the two of them with their memories of Steve, the ghost of him pressing down on them and into Bucky’s lungs, turning into the air that flows through Bucky’s body and forcing his mind to spin, his blood to run, and his heart to pump.

* * *

The wind whips Carter’s hair around her face and chafes at Bucky’s bare skin. The sunset is long, casting deep shadows, burning the water beneath them. The days in winter are quick to linger. There are no fishing rods along the river, no people playing and shouting, only secrets being dredged from the shallows. As the sun sets, the reflection turns the river into a pool of blinding light that stretches as far as Bucky can see, warming him from the outside in.

The day ends in the way all tragedies do: one second after another. Carter’s shoulders shake, but her crying isn’t audible over the wind. She uncorks the vial and tips it until the blood runs, out and down, down, into the depths below.


	4. 1947

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This features heavy Bucky/OMC but no explicit sex scenes (edit: none like I have written before, eg 2-3000 word long scenes. There are two sex scenes). Bucky can have a little romance, as a treat.
> 
> There were actually refugees who were trained as CIA spies and dropped into Soviet territory, but as far as I am aware they were only dropped in Germany. It’s true that Soviet soldiers killed them—literally all of them—because one of the people in charge was talking to a mole in the CIA and he knew all of the missions the refugees went on. So they all died. And the CIA never followed up on what happened to these highly trained spies, they thought their missions were successful but they never knew all of them were dead. Literally you could not make this kind of incompetence up.

After more than a year of codebreaking, cipher, language, surveillance, counterintelligence, memory, martial arts, open-source, signals, evasion, technical, financial, escape, infiltration/exfiltration, and medical intelligence training, Bucky arrives in Moscow with little more than a new camera, three paperbacks, a codename, an alias, and two cotton thermal suits. The city is cold. It’s fucking cold. He thought he knew cold from New York winters but this is something else. The snow spreads out like an expanse across the town center, blanketing buildings and piling high in gutters. He grips his rucksack tighter in his left hand and marches through the city towards his apartment building.

As he’s walking, the derelict nature of the city becomes clear. Storefronts are boarded up, their doorways packed with people huddled in ratty blankets for warmth underneath. Unhoused people line the streets, and others line up for their daily rations, a bleak look at what Stalin has done to the country since the Romanov rule and the War. You wouldn’t think to look at it that the chaos would be rampant, but he passes a snowball fight in the Kremlin, and his spirits lift.

America isn’t the bastion of hope and glory—and Theresa often expressed the same sentiment—but at least it’s better than this. Freedom is in short supply in Soviet Russia. 

By the time he gets there, ice has collected in his hair, turning each strand to icicles before it melts from the heat of his skin. He passes someone as soon as he gets in the building, and he makes conversation in perfect, accentless Russian. One of the skills he honed in the war was picking up new languages, and there were plenty in Europe to pick up. He could have made it as a spy for the Army if it hadn’t been for Azzano and the mounting fear that he was more dead weight than anything else, and now he’s a spy for the SSR. Things have a funny way of working out like that. 

The room itself is more of an apartment, with a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living area with a desk and a sofa. The small window overlooks the wide expanse of the city, the struggling buildings, and the post-war poverty of it all. Two MGB officers hassle a peasant woman while her child cries in the snow. Bucky forces himself to watch for several minutes until the officers leave and the woman breaks down, falling to her knees to hug her child. 

His left arm starts to tingle as it does when he’s had the prosthesis on for too long. He shucks his top layers and flexes the fingers on the fake arm. They don’t move like normal fingers; instead, they jerk quietly, opening and closing into a fist as he imagines squeezing them. Somehow Howard managed to make something that doesn’t kill anyone and won’t send him to jail. The arm itself is very intuitive. Bucky can think about the things he wants it to do—pick up his bag, clutch a doorknob, hold a piece of paper—while moving his limb, and it will do them. The miracle of modern technology is that, with a protective skin over the mechanics that matches the color of his own, no one is any the wiser if they don’t look closely.

The room is too quiet compared to the bustle of New York City, and he feels uneasy. He unpacks his bag, taking his clothes to the closet and placing his paperbacks on the desk beside the bed. He checks the room for bugs, finding rotted plasterboard and dirty wallpaper. Then he pulls out the suitcase, which contains a deconstructed radio and telegraph key, and takes it to the desk to assemble. He remembers the construction from his first week of W/T training and puts it together easily, connecting the telegraph key and fitting the crystals into the spares pocket. He takes one of the crystals out and slots it into the side of the radio, then taps out a message on the telegraph key.

By the time he’s done, the tingling in his arm has worsened. It’s like a small electric shock going right from the base of his limb to his brain. He undoes the strap holding the arm in place to take it off and sighs in relief, the tingling gone, his arm back to its normal weightlessness. There are many things for him to get used to in the new world, and this is one of them. 

The sun begins to set on his first day in Russia, in which he’s done nothing but arrive. The flight was long, too long, and he falls asleep quickly, dreaming of open skies and fresh zucchini.

* * *

The next day, he takes his camera and tripod out with him to explore the city. He’s come to think of his camera as a pet or a partner, someone who comes with him wherever he goes, who documents the things he needs to continue his work here, or the things he might forget later. The camera he has now is new, an Ansco Speedex 4.5, his Zeiss Super Ikonta still back in his bedroom at Becca’s house. He still has the photos of Becca he took throughout the two years that he lived with her, memories from a better time than whatever the hell he’s doing now. Spying, he guesses. That’s as good a life path as any.

He spends the day like a tourist, travelling the city with his camera to take photos. The Bolshoi Theatre, Alexandrovsky Gardens, Mozhaiskoye highway—he doesn’t know why he’s here. The country is in famine and hundreds of thousands of people are dying or dead. The United States is giving aid to them, and Bucky’s here taking photos. He’ll be here until they bring him home, because what else does he have to do? He’s a soldier without a war, a prisoner without a cage, a citizen without a country. He’s untethered and floating 400 feet off the ground. He needs to come down somehow.

So he takes his photos and he avoids the MGB and other scrutiny by donning his Russian accent like a well-worn coat to last him through the winter. Most people leave him alone, some casting glances at his camera as they pass, but he hardly arouses suspicion. Like a good little spy, he thinks. Two well-dressed women on horseback pass him on the street, and no one bats an eye at that either.

* * *

On the third day he finds the photo. It’s the one—mouth open, gazing up at the camera—

Bucky falls to his knees on his bedroom floor, clutching at the place his heart is supposed to beat. It’s only when he’s collected himself that he can fold the photo up and put it in one of his paperbacks where he forgets about it.

* * *

From the secret pocket of his suitcase, he pulls a camera disguised as a flower pin and its complementary clicker out of a little case. He affixes the camera to his coat lapel and sets out to the city again. This time his target is the police station and any non-descript looking buildings that could hide Soviet Secrets. The people he passes on the streets keep to themselves so he does the same; whereas in New York, people would bustle by, talking loudly between them, shouting to be heard over the noise of the city, Moscow is a quiet city. Most of the people are dead, and the ones that are still alive are dying—starvation, famine, the incompetence of their government. It’s not Bucky’s job to kill Stalin, but would if he could. 

He stands as close as he can to the buildings, as surreptitious as possible. At least he doesn’t look out of place. He looks Russian enough, with his thick eyebrows and big forehead, which Steve would always tease—

An excruciating pain shoots through his limb, making him curse in English and drop to his knee. He kneads his shoulder through the layers of his coat and the shirts underneath, but the pain dies down within seconds. A peasant woman comes over to help him up, reaching her gnarled hands out to his fake arm. He excuses himself, thanking her politely as he rises to his feet. 

Later that night, he tosses and turns in bed with the images of the war playing out in his mind. In his dreams, he’s tracking his prey through a forest with a telescopic sight, a beast with six heads, and coal for eyes. It rifles through the underbrush with the mindlessness of a brute, picking through the dead, feasting on their flesh. Bucky watches it come closer, closer, can smell its putridity from 100 yards away. He must move, or the scent of his aliveness must give him away, because it spots him. It runs forward, tossing its massive bulk around as it barrels towards him. His heart rate stays steady as he focuses the sight on its eye, but in the next second, it’s on him, sinking all of its teeth into his chest, ripping him apart easily.

A shout leaves his mouth, yanking him from the dream, the violence fresh in his mind. The scars on the base of his limb prickle with heat and pain, and he feels it throb like morse code as if his arm is trying to tell him something. _Ridiculous_ , he thinks, and rolls over. 

Even if it could tell him something, it wouldn’t be anything he doesn’t already know.

* * *

A bald, stocky, short man named Petr comes to collect him from the Metropol and take him to his new office.

“It used to be a record shop,” he explains. “You know, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, that kind of thing.” The shop is tucked away in an alley near Staraya Square, where the walls of the buildings look like they’re crumbling, bricks missing, broken bottles and cigarette butts piled in every corner. “Of course, everyone is going bankrupt nowadays. It’s hard to even feed the family. If it wasn’t for this job I don’t know what I’d do.” 

Petr opens the door with a shove. “The electricity is up and running,” he says, flicking the lights on and off several times.

The shop is bare-bones, a counter and an old cash till, an office in the corner with broken shades, fifty different kinds of propaganda flyers smeared across the wallpaper, and rows of broken shelving throughout. Bucky feels something warm in his chest, a spark of inspiration and excitement. There are no windows save for the one looking into the office, which is all the better for Bucky’s cover as a mild-mannered photographer with his own studio. 

“I love it.” He runs his hand over one of the shelves and his fingers pick up tracks of dust. 

“It’s yours. I’ll bring the boys around tomorrow morning to help you clear all this shit out.” Petr kicks at a bit of wood on the floor. “Ah, no good.” He hands the keys over and Bucky takes them with a burgeoning sense of hope welling inside him.

He spends the day breaking down the shelves into planks of wood—mostly by jumping on them, which is the most fun he’s had in years. He draws up plans for what he wants to do with the place, including what he’s going to paint the walls and how to build the darkroom. The next day, Petr’s sons come around and help him load the detritus into the back of a van. Bucky’s not sure where it goes; he doesn’t ask and they don’t tell him.

Over the next few days, they help Bucky get what he needs to create the space. They help clean, paint, patch up the drywall where it’s crumbling in places, and assemble the darkroom. They don’t even want his thanks, although Bucky feels bereft without anything to give them. 

“Family portraits,” he says. “On me.” 

Alexandr and Dimitri laugh and get in their van. The last, Fyodr, lingers behind, waving them on until they take off.

“So you’re from America?” he asks, lighting a cigarette. It’s still ungodly cold outside, and Bucky ushers him into the studio. It looks fucking good now, with backdrops, lights and reflectors: an actual, proper set up. 

Fyodr jumps up on the counter while Bucky leans against it. He has deep brown eyes, high cheekbones, and a sultry grace to the way he holds his body, back bowed as he leans his elbow on his knee.

Bucky nods. “I am.” Fyodr takes a drag of his cigarette before holding it out to him, and he takes it after a second. It tastes good, his first hit of nicotine in over a year. He smoked too much during the war, but sharing a cigarette with a handsome stranger is one of the few pleasures in life he can’t deny himself. 

“Why would you want to come here?”

“My parents are Russian. My father died a couple years ago, my mother last year, and I’ve always wanted to come here. Thought I’d take the chance while I’m in between jobs.”

Fyodr takes the cigarette back. He sticks it in his mouth while he takes his jacket off, letting it fall. Bucky does the same, tossing his over the counter. It’s warm enough in here from the lack of ventilation that he’s not cold. Fyodr glances up and down, taking him in. Bucky wants to make an impression, so he leans with his elbows on the counter, stretching out his long legs, arching his back. Fyodr’s eyes on him are like a brand, and it feels _good_ to be wanted.

“You’ll get socialised easily,” Fyodr says, with heat in his gaze. “You’re American, but you’re sexy, so people won’t care.”

Bucky lets out a low laugh, ducking his head. 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Fyodr says, and Bucky laughs again.

“I’m not embarrassed.” He turns his gaze up to Fyodr again, just in time for Fyodr to swoop down and kiss him. Bucky surges up to return the kiss as Fyodr bites at his lips. It turns hungry in seconds, and then Fyodr jumps down to pin Bucky against the counter. He kisses Bucky again, hands on his hips, while Bucky’s head spins from the scent of Fyodr’s cologne and the heat of his body. “Fuck,” Bucky says in English.

“That’s what I wanted,” Fyodr replies in English. “To fuck?”

“Let’s go then.”

They keep kissing through it, hands bumping as they get each other’s pants down, Fyodr’s hand wrapping around them both, stroking until Bucky comes with a whine, Fyodr following quickly. They clean up with a t-shirt they find in a box of them marked “хлам” behind the counter.

Fyodr kisses Bucky’s temple and pulls his jacket on, lighting another cigarette as he makes for the door.

“I don’t suppose I’ll see you again,” Bucky says.

Fyodr throws him a lingering look over his shoulder. “Probably not. Have fun.”

Bucky can only guess at what Fyodr means. In a blink he’s out of the door and out of Bucky’s life, with only the lingering traces of cologne and warmth for Bucky to remember him. 

“Well, happy 30th birthday, Bucky,” he says, to the empty space around him that is, undeniably, all his.

* * *

While he sent the pictures he took of the police buildings back to the SSR, he takes the time to develop his own in the office that he turned into a darkroom. He doesn’t miss the SSR, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing in Russia anymore than he knew what he was doing back in New York. He should retire, really. He’s done his time, he’s served his country, he should be in Shelbyville again, but he breaks out in a sweat at the thought of what he’d do with himself if he sat still for half a second and just breathed. So he’s here, for the foreseeable future, trying to make something of his life. 

Trying to have a life, which is futile in a country is frozen for most of the year. If he wanted to breathe life back into his own body, he could have done that in fucking Mexico. He had the option, but really, an American spy behind the Iron Curtain? That’s too good an opportunity to pass up.

The finagles his way into _Pravda_ and from there he gets his foot into the propaganda machine. He takes photos of what they tell him to take photos of, which includes press meetings and schmoozing with officials, all under the name of Antony Sergeevich Zhilin. Antony loves pelmeni and practical, Soviet fashion. He dons the identity with all the grace of a serpent, slithering into the bowels of the city, extending his reach as far as he can.

The atmosphere of the city, of the newspaper and the people, seems to be that everyone is holding their breath. War could break out any day between the US and the USSR, and after everything the Russian people have been through in the last few years alone, Bucky doesn’t envy their position. He’ll get out fine; he always does. Whether it’s in one piece or a few—

Somehow he gets in good with the editor, a bald, bespectacled man named Zaslavsky, and it’s all smooth sailing from there. He meets with dignitaries and dines with statesmen, and all he had to do was point his camera and shoot. It’s the easiest gambit he’s ever worked, much easier than running drills barefoot in the rain, much easier than running around New York City every night hoping to pull Howard Stark out of the hot water he inevitably will always, always get himself in. Apparently Stark’s pissed off the Margaret Truman and now half the country wants to see him serve time for whatever salacious mess he’s got himself into. Thank god Bucky doesn’t run around with _those_ sorts anymore. 

It’s all communist dictators and propaganda purists from here on out.

* * *

The drop is 22 miles outside of the city, and it’s hell to walk through the snow, but at least he has 8 knives and 3 pistols hidden on him, as well as a day’s worth of rations, for the trek ahead. He needs to invest in a car, now that Stalin has upped production and he has one more hand to drive it with. 

He’s supposed to meet the 3 refugees at midnight, but as he’s coming up to the drop zone at 10pm he can see them parachute down. They land in the forest, and he can hear them move around, dead quiet as it is, with their 130 pounds of equipment and bulky chutes. As he nears them, he hears another sound: spurts of rapid gunfire and the sound of bodies hitting the forest floor. 

He comes up behind the Soviet soldiers and slits the first one’s neck, then the other in quick succession, and their bodies hit the ground too. It doesn’t make up for the spies they just lost, all of them dead when Bucky checks their pulses. 

“Fuck,” he says to the forest at large. The forest does not answer back. He buries the bodies and their equipment, save for the shotguns and pistols, and makes the trek back to the city with a mounting sense of frustration and unease. Someone knew about the drops. Someone in the SSR is either a mole or talking to a mole, and they need to find out who before any more damage is done. It’s not just that they’ve lost spies and all the knowledge and training that they went through, it’s that these spies were people. They were refugees fleeing their countries for a chance to live a better life. It makes Bucky furious.

As soon as he gets to his apartment he radios in. He taps out the message, _Package intercepted. All dead. Mole in network._ and sits back in his chair with a sigh. They sent him here because he has the experience, knowledge and expertise to carry out these missions, and because he didn’t want to climb the ladder. He’d rather be out in the field than pushing paper, but this is fucking rough. He didn’t even know these guys but he the responsibility of their lives is on him. He was supposed to help them settle into their new lives here, and he failed, because someone is talking when they should keep their fucking mouth shut. 

He only has to wait another minute before a response comes through. He recognizes the fist print as Carter’s. 

_Info received. Stay on mission._

It’s about as heartwarming a response as he expected. As in an empty tundra, there is little empathy to go around in an institution that trades in human lives.

* * *

One of the perks of his job—or dangers, however one wants to look at it—is that he gets to rub shoulders with the Soviet elite, which means brunches with diplomats, drinks with senators, and complimentary ballets at the Bolshoi theatre. 

He’s introduced to Trofim Lysenko in the intermission of _Chopiniana_ , and Bucky wants to make a corny joke about how he inherited his father’s money and his mother’s sense of humour, but he refrains. Instead he makes small talk and stuffs down every retort about famines, genocides, and the millions of people that have died due to his faulty rhetoric about crop genetics. He stuffs it down deep, into a box inside himself that only sees the light of day when he wants to remind himself that he is a good person, he is, god fucking damnit, and his sense of self might be wasting away but he’s doing it for the right cause. 

As he’s downing his fourth glass of champagne, he spots another American, loud, brash and entirely devoted to the technology of war he creates to bring down nations. “Fuck,” Bucky says to himself, as Howard Stark moseys over to him. “What the fuck are you _doing_ here?”

Stark makes an affronted expression. “What, I can’t travel 5,000 miles into enemy territory to see my best guy?”

“Stark.”

“I’m here on behalf of the embassy.” He gets an uncharacteristically serious look on his face.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Bucky says. 

Stark takes them back to the Metropol. The whole hotel is grander than grand, and the room as well, with art-nouveau style florals and elegant silhouettes adorning the walls. He’s rented an entire floor to himself, “For security reasons,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Bucky doesn’t bother taking his coat off as he follows Stark into the room. “What do you want?”

“Yeesh, this country has made you cold, Barnes.” Bucky gives him a flat look. “Okay, first, I’m here to upgrade your arm.” He pulls a case from under the bed, which holds a deconstructed prosthesis much more advanced the one Bucky currently wears. “You better be happy about this, I’m really sticking my neck out for you.”

“Better watch your head then.” Bucky shucks his top layers and takes his current arm off. It works fine, if a little slower now than it used to, and Bucky was wondering himself if he would get a new one. He didn’t expect Stark to turn up here bearing glad tidings, though. 

Stark pulls the pieces of the new arm from the case to assemble them. “And the second reason I’m here, is because there’s been rumblings of a new regime. Stalin’s been ruling this country with an iron fist for 20 years, and the people are getting restless. You’d know that better than us.” Bucky nods. “We’ve heard that not all of Hydra went down with the Red Skull.”

It takes a second for that information to sink in, and Bucky swears. “Are you kidding?”

“Wish I was, pal.” Stark screws in certain parts of the arm—the wrist to the forearm, the forearm to the elbow. Bucky watches with fascination as the arm comes to life before him. “Which means Hydra is probably planning something.”

“You want me to what—protect Stalin?”

“God no,” Stark says with a laugh. “We want you to watch your ass. And also Hydra’s.” He connects the arm to a new sling that’ll sit around Bucky’s shoulders and holds it out to him with a smile. “I thought you’d be happy,” he says, seeing the dismay on Bucky’s face.

“About what?”

Stark shrugs. “About killing nazis. And the arm. Not for nothing, but I did fly all the way out here to give it to you.”

Bucky laughs and puts it on. As soon as it connects to the skin of his limb he feels a _zing_ in his brain that tastes like coconut flakes. It moves fluidly, adapting to the way he moves his limb. He snaps the fingers and Stark makes a face like, _eh, eh?_

“It’s fucking fantastic,” Bucky says. “Although it does look like, you know, a metal fucking arm.”

Stark digs around in his suitcase and brings out what looks like a flesh-coloured condom, but big enough to fit his whole arm through. It slides on easy enough, and Stark makes another few adjustments with his screwdriver until it fits perfectly. It doesn’t look like a human arm, exactly, but since Bucky wears gloves and a coat most of the year it doesn’t matter. 

“Son of a bitch, I’ve done it again,” Stark says. They share a laugh, but whatever Stark wants to say filters through it and sticks in the air like humidity. 

“Hydra’s back, then,” Bucky says.

“Yeah.” Stark moves to make himself a drink, knocking it back before he continues. He turns to Bucky with a guarded look. “You know what that means, right?”

Bucky isn’t going to like what he says; he can feel it in his gut even before he asks the question. “What does it mean?”

“That Steve died for nothing.”

The glare forms in Bucky’s eyes without conscious thought and Stark, sensing what’s best for him, shuts up. It’s only later, back at his own apartment, that Bucky allows himself to feel the weight of that statement, if only for a few seconds, before he shoves it down, down, into the depths below.

* * *

The summer of 1950 sees Bucky take a fishing trip to Delhi with a group of security ministry officials. He’s never been anywhere with this kind of climate or culture, and between the espionage and inwardly plotting the downfall of every one of these bastards, Bucky finds himself enjoying the populated city, the motorised rickshaws with mountainous piles of dry goods and vegetables, and the stunning array of native birds. 

He enjoys torturing information out of a Hydra agent more though. The guy has a thick Swiss accent and just listening to it brings back flashes of the war. Every time he screams, Bucky has to shove a sock in his mouth to keep from waking up the neighbours in the American enclave. Bucky and the other American spy he’s with, a short, unassuming man named Henrikson who owns the house, trade the knife back and forth until they get all the information they need. 

Whether any of it is useful, true or even necessary, Bucky doesn’t particularly care. After all the days he’s spent taking photos of a dictator and people who want to watch the world burn from behind their iron curtain, it’s good to let off a little steam.

If he thought about it, and he never lets himself, he’d find he doesn’t particularly like the person this job has turned him into.

* * *

At random points throughout the years, he hears Stark’s voice in his head, _Give those commie fucks the hell they deserve_ , and Becca’s, her delicate timbre, _Do what your country wants, and then come back home to us_. As the years wear on, with an increasing difficulty, he finds it harder to come back to himself, to remember why he’s doing this in the first place. He never had a good reason, but “running” seems as pathetic a joke as possible. 

The world spins, the days happen, and he thinks about throwing it in, just going back to America where the sun shines and he can eat some real food. The space race is heating up and half a world away Theresa’s homeland is tearing itself apart. And then a cerebral haemorrhage topples a regime that Bucky is a little despondent he’s not the one to end. _Pravda_ reads:

“От Центрального Комитета Коммунистической Партии Советского Союза, Совета Министров Союза Сср И Президиума Верховного Совета Ссср: Ко Всем Членам Партии, Ко Всем Трудящимся Советскою Союза.”

“On March 5, at 9 hours and 50 minutes in the evening, after a serious illness, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin passed away. The heart of Lenin’s comrade-in-arms and the inspired continuer of Lenin’s cause, the wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet people, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, has stopped beating.”

Bucky telephones his boss to say he’s too heartbroken to work, and his boss understands. He works up a sweat as he Charlestons around his apartment, the one place in the entire country he doesn’t have to bear the sorrows of a nation under siege from a tyrant—at least until his downstairs neighbours bang a broom on the floor and tell him to fuck off. The Soviets set off a bomb; they’re on their way to space flight; and America is waging war, on its own country and beyond. His position here and his alias are as precarious as a tattered flag on a bent pole, but maybe it’s better to be thrown into prison in a foreign country than to be betrayed by his own. But now, for once, he can celebrate.

Nothing much shocks him anymore. He weathers the storms of whatever fresh hell life brings, and then he goes home and sends the report of the day to Carter. Nothing happens, and nothing matters. He knows how his days will go, the ebb and flow of them, nothing like the sparks of his youth. They start the same and they end the same.

Until Vladimir.

* * *

In 1957, Bucky meets Vladimir Konstantinovich Vasnev at the NATO summit meeting in December. The never-ending Russian winters make Bucky think of Christmas all year round, and this year his plans are to dance alone in his apartment, instead of attending the end of year _Pravda_ party where he will have to suffer through the boorish whims of his coworkers. He’s settled into his one lonely life with no surprises, so when he’s introduced to Georgy Zarubin’s attaché, Bucky doesn’t pay him any mind.

But Vladimir takes a liking to Bucky. While Bucky is taking photos of Churchill’s speech, Vladimir sidles up next to him. Bucky knows who he is; it’s his business to take photos of everyone important. 

“I hear you’re the person to talk to about family portraits.”

Bucky pastes on a smile. He can do more of this, this preening, this pretending. He just needs to get through the next forty years of his life before he can die in happy obscurity. When he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t have any new age lines, and he doesn’t look a day older than the day they pulled him onto that operating table and did whatever they did to him. So maybe he won’t die, and he’ll live forever, cursed with this one shitty, lonely life.

“That’s me. Antony.” Bucky takes off his glove with his teeth to shake Vladimir’s hand. Vladimir’s grip is firm, strong, his hands callused and nicked. He has broad shoulders and a strong jaw, and Bucky thinks of all the honeytraps who go for guys in Vladimir’s rank, and what sweet sin it must be to wrap them around your finger and squeeze. “Do you want to get some pictures done?”

Vladimir nods. “Of me and my family, yes.”

“Wife, kids?”

Vladimir smiles ruefully. “Unfortunately not. It’s just me and my mother.” 

There’s something under Vladimir’s smile, something pained, his voice tinged with regret and—fear. Oh. It’s like that, then. 

“You know what they say about men who loves their mothers,” Bucky says, because he knows he’s in good company. He can practically smell it on Vladimir, this desperation to be normal, to be perceived as normal. Bucky has seen what happens to men who try to be that way, how it tears them up inside, how it ruins lives. But the alternative is even more life-ruining. The place this world is for people like them—it’s not pretty. Bucky’s been keeping himself in check while he’s here because he’s grown older and wiser and he’s one misstep from life behind bars in a non-extraditing country. 

“What’s that?” He glances around as though embarrassed to hear the answer that’s coming.

What else is he here for? Bucky wonders. And then, oh, he doesn’t know. “It means they have great relationships with women.” Bucky can feel the taste for the chase creeping back, the game of confounding and enticing in equal measure, of ruining and enlivening at the same time. 

“Is that so.” Vladimir’s eyes narrow as though he’s trying to suss Bucky out, but Bucky has evaded both definition and study for 40 years now, and he’s never been easy to pin down. One of Zarubin’s assistants comes up to talk to Vladimir, and he looks askance with a sigh. “I have to go. It was nice to meet you, Antony.”

“Come to my work,” Bucky says, giving Vladimir an appraising look. “I’ll give you what you need.”

Vladimir disappears back into the crowd, leaving the scent of wood shavings and lacquer to settle over Bucky in a cloud.

* * *

A week later, a knock sounds on his apartment door. He’s been testing the limits of his new arm—updated just a week ago when Stark flew on the promise of more Hydra intel—and finds, to his delighted surprise, the fingers are dextrous enough to use toenail clippers and sturdy enough that he can plunge his hand into a pot of boiling spaghetti and only feel a slight tickling sensation. 

He’s still wiping spaghetti water off his arm when he answers the door. Lo and behold, it’s the closet case from the week before. 

“Hi,” Vladimir says. He’s holding a bottle of wine for some absurd reason. “I found your address from your boss. You’re not at work today.”

Bucky does a mental assessment of the situation and comes up with no reason why Vladimir Vasnev, a high-ranking political attaché, would come to his door with a bottle of wine. 

Well, he can think of one.

“Vladimir, right?” 

“Just Vlad.”

Bucky turns on the charm as easily as breathing. “Why don’t you come in, it’s warmer in here.” 

“It _is_ warmer in here,” Vlad comments. “Radiator broken?”

Bucky nods. “Old building, you know how it is. Getting anyone to fix anything around here is an exercise in futility.”

Vlad makes an expression as he looks around the space like he’s considering it—not judging it, like Bucky thought he would, just taking it in. Bucky hasn’t done much to make the place his own, only thrown up a couple of paintings and replaced the old, moth-eaten rug with a faux fur one that looks and feels like feathers. Even after living here for a decade it’s possible he could up and leave at a moment’s notice—such is the life of a spy. Soldier. Whichever one fits him best on the day.

“I, uh.” Vlad glances back at Bucky. Just because he doesn’t know why he’s here doesn’t mean Bucky will make it easier on him, and he cocks his hip against the sink and waits for Vlad to continue. “We didn’t get much of a chance to talk the other day. I was hoping you would take some photos of myself and my mother. We don’t have many photos together and her birthday is soon. I thought it would be a nice present.”

Bucky smiles warmly. “That is a nice present.” He holds out his hand for the wine and Vlad gives it. “You want some now?”

“Oh, no, it’s much too early for wine. I’ll take vodka.”

Bucky pours them both glasses of vodka and they move to the living room, which is a foot and two armchairs away from being in the kitchen. 

“So,” Bucky says, settling into an armchair while Vlad does the same. He’s tall, taller even than Bucky, and he dwarfs the seat like it’s made for a child. His cut-glass jawline and heavy-lidded eyes make him striking, and Bucky wants to know him—wants to get to know him. “Tell me about your mother.”

Vlad launches into his backstory, which includes his mother providing for him after his father left. “Turns out marriage really isn’t for everyone,” he concludes, and Bucky nods. 

“I’m sorry that happened. My parents died before they had a chance to divorce.”

Vlad doesn’t laugh. He looks at his drink but doesn’t do anything with it. Bucky doesn’t drink anymore, and he only bought it for guests, but he takes a sip anyway, knowing it won’t do anything for him. 

“I’d be happy to take photos of you and your mother,” Bucky says.

“I should warn you, I photograph horribly.” Vlad smiles self-deprecatingly. 

“A handsome man such as yourself? How can that possibly be?” 

A silence passes between them that isn’t entirely uncomfortable. Vlad gives Bucky a loaded look, and Bucky knows what it means. It’s the look of someone who’s been denying himself what he really wants his whole life and doesn’t even know it.

Vlad shifts, uncomfortable. “I should go.” But he doesn’t move. He stays seated and his vodka stays undrunk. 

Bucky’s not going to push him. Let him come on his own terms. After another short silence, Vlad does stand and Bucky follows him to the door, taking his glass.

“It was lovely to see you again, Antony,” he says. “Is it okay if I see you again tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Bucky says. Vlad touches him briefly on the shoulder, as though afraid to do more, and when Bucky closes the door, he’s sweating from more than just the radiator.

* * *

Vlad stops by with a case full of tools and fixes the radiator. Bucky might be embarrassed that he’s gone his whole life without fixing anything with his hands other than a rifle and a camera, two polar opposites of his life that have somehow coalesced, but he’s not. He washes the dishes while Vlad works, and they chat about Sputnik, Laika the dog, and whether Russia or America is going to get a man in space first. They both bet on America, although Russia is a strong contender.

“They’re waiting for the chance to strike, like a viper,” Vlad says, and Bucky can’t help but laugh.

When he’s finished, Vlad’s hands are dirty from whatever gunk was living in the radiator, and Bucky can breathe properly without overheating. Eventually the heat dissipates, but it’s not until later, after Vlad has left, touching Bucky’s shoulder again on the way out.

Bucky doesn’t have time for romantic entanglements. With two jobs and the threat of Hydra looming around every corner, his life is full. 

But the contradictory emptiness of a lonely life overshadows all of that. It gnaws at him; it’s more than the need to have sex, more than the need for physical affection. He wants the kind of love he’s been denying himself too. 

The only time their schedules sync up again is two weeks later, and Vlad brings his mother Katina to the studio. She’s a regal woman in her late 70s, with high cheekbones, wearing real pearls and a fur coat. She photographs well, and Vlad looks handsome next to her. Bucky can see the family resemblance in their eye shape, but where Katina is dainty, Vlad is strong. 

As he’s leaving, Bucky presses a book into his hand. “‘It occurred to me how much cruelty there is at the heart of every happiness,’” Bucky quotes. “Come by my apartment any time you’re in town.” Vlad takes the book with surprise, but is ushered out of the door by Katina.

* * *

Bucky and a group of highly trained refugees trek through the night into Khimki. Bucky might be freezing to death but it’s hard to tell anymore what parts of him hurt from the cold what parts of him hurt from being alive for over 41 years. He looks in the mirror and sees the same face he’s seen for the last 16 years, hoping one day he won’t be able to recognise himself, because it might mean someone else is doing what he’s doing. 

They’re not. It’s just him.

The base they find perched on the edge of the Moscow Canal is badly disguised to look like a furniture warehouse, a big “мебель” splashed across the front of the building, surrounded by a chain-link fence with barbed wire at the top. One of the Russian SSR agents found it last week when passing through on a recon mission, and how it went unnoticed before then is anyone’s guess. 

The guards switch out every 45 minutes while they wait alongside the canal. This is their only chance to get in; the intel they’ve received says this base in only in operation until tomorrow morning, when it will be stripped and abandoned like all the others before it. Whatever nuclear weapons they’re working on, whatever technology they have, Bucky needs to find it now. 

Bucky takes out the on-duty guard and they slip into the building. There’s nothing on the first floor but as soon as they hit the second all hell breaks loose. Two of Bucky’s guys, Kowalski and Almasi, die in the firefight. A bullet grazes Bucky’s shoulder, ripping through his outer layers and busting open his skin. Six of the refugees file the scientists into the courtyard where backup is waiting to ship them off—hopefully to America where they can rot in a prison camp—and he and two more guys, Ganim and Bianchi, go down to the sub-basement level. 

It’s creepy in here with a strange, green fluorescent lighting that guides them down and through. In the antechamber they find dozens of filing cabinets, and in the last room of the sub-basement they find something creepier.

There are eight chambers, all standing upright, with metal bodies and glass lids to see into them. Tubes stick out of the top, connected to the wall by chunky wires. They’re big enough to fit an adult man, and Bucky shudders at the thought of what goes on in there. 

Something stirs towards the back of the room and a noise follows, a weak gasp of pain. Bucky and Ganim approach with their rifles raised. There is a chair made of metal and wires, and strapped to it is a man with no shirt on. Blood runs down his temples from beneath electrodes attached to his skin. His eyes flutter open as they approach. 

“My name is Antony Zhilin,” Bucky says in Russian. “We’re with the American Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Are you hurt?”

The man turns his glassy stare at Bucky, uncomprehending. 

Bucky tries again in French, German and English, but the man says nothing. 

“He’s stuck. Should we get him loose?” Ganim asks. 

Bucky shakes his head. “Wait for backup.” The man struggles against the metal clamps around his arms as Bucky approaches. “Do you speak English?” Bucky asks. The man looks terrified. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He shoulders his rifle and puts his hands up.

The man calms down at that and his eyes narrow in confusion. “I speak English,” he says.

“What’s your name?”

“Assets don’t have names.”

The words send a chill down Bucky’s spine. 

“Do you know what this place is?” The man shakes his head. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“To complete my missions.” The man says it by rote as though it’s been fed to him many times. 

“What are your missions?” The sense of _wrongness_ that makes Bucky’s skin crawl gets worse the longer they talk. 

“To eliminate targets.”

“Which targets?”

“Whichever targets you tell me to.”

It clicks into place then. A mercenary of sorts, but held against his will. Brainwashed, tortured into submission. Is that what the chambers are for? Another form of torture? He doesn’t know his own name.

Bucky walks closer, his hands still held up as the man’s eyes widen and he struggles back in the chair. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The man reeks, and probably hasn’t showered in weeks, if they let him shower at all. It’s anyone’s guess how long he’s been Hydra’s prisoner, no one to rescue him the way Bucky was rescued by—

The electrodes are stuck to his temples and take skin with them when Bucky peels them off, as carefully as he can. The man whimpers but doesn’t fight against it. His whole body is trembling in fear or pain, or perhaps both, and Bucky feels for him. His time in Krausberg is something he only lets himself remember when he’s asleep, lest it overwhelm him on the tram or in the middle of a workday. He still wakes up sweating, afraid, confused, sure he’s still back there from the visceral nature of his dreams. No one rescues him when he’s dreaming. 

At least he is able to rescue this man now, whoever he is. He can do that thing right.

Backup arrives and Ganim presses the release button on the console next to the chair. The man is ushered away by SHIELD agents and Bucky gives a run-down to the guy in charge. A doctor comes to stitch up Bucky’s arm, which only hurts once he realizes what’s happened. He promises to keep it clean, and hitches a ride with one of the agents back to the outskirts of Moscow, where he walks into the city centre. The adrenaline washes its way out of his body by the time he gets in the door to his apartment. He tosses his weapons aside and falls onto his bed still wearing the same clothes, slipping into a fitful sleep that he awakens from over two days later.

* * *

It’s not until February of 1961 that he sees Vlad again. The war between the Iron Curtain and the Star-Spangled Banner rages with no end in sight, while America tips its way further into neo-liberalism and Russia comes of age. Stark calls him with a pained twinge in his voice.

“The brass is worried,” Stark says. “About your cover, I mean.”

“You’re the brass, Stark,” Bucky replies, popping walnuts into his mouth as he contemplates whether leaving his apartment on a Tuesday evening counts as having a social life. “Whatever you need to say, just spit it out.”

“Look, I’m not implying anything.”

“Good. I wouldn’t listen if you were.” 

Stark sighs. “We’re a long way off from how this country should be, I know that, and it’s good you missed the last ten years, but people are asking questions. Questions I don’t want to have to give answers to.”

Bucky chews his walnuts casually and loudly. “Then just fire them. That’s what you do, right?”

“Firing them won’t stop the rumors.”

Bucky stops chewing. 

“Have you thought about getting married?”

Bucky scoffs. “Are you asking me if I’m queer?”

“No, I’m not,” Stark says definitively. “I don’t want to know that.”

“Right, plausible deniability.” Bucky feels anger burn in his stomach like red hot coals. 

“Exactly.”

Bucky snorts. Stark’s tact knows no limits. “Fuck you, Howard.”

“Barnes, shut the fuck up. I’m trying to protect you here.”

Bucky contemplates hanging up on him, but his anger is too much, and he snarls, “I don’t need your _protection_.”

“Oh, yes you fucking do,” Stark shoots back. “Guess who’s been keeping McCarthy off the backs of my employees, huh? Guess who helped your boy Rogers when he was knee-deep in the shit, who kept him from getting killed until he went and did it to himself anyway?”

“Don’t—don’t talk about that,” Bucky says, his voice hoarse, cracking at the end. “I can’t—” He stops, chin wobbling, throat tight.

Stark sighs. “Listen, okay. Men get married to women, and they have babies and they raise those babies into killing machines so they can fight in wars. It’s the circle of life.”

Bucky thinks about the missions he goes on, how close he comes sometimes to getting his head blown off, what that would do to a family if he had one. “I can’t do that to someone. I can’t do that to a kid.”

“Toughen up, Barnes. We all gotta make sacrifices.”

Bucky slams the receiver down. What fucking sacrifices has Howard Stark ever made? He’s not living in a foreign country, alone, isolated from anything even resembling home.

But he can’t stop thinking about it. What would that look like? Dating a woman, like he used to, pretending to fall in love with her, getting her pregnant, raising a kid. He’s not like Becca, who was born to be a mother. Bucky listens to Amy on the phone talk about her school and her friends and he knows she’s going to have the best life possible, better than Bucky’s, better even than Becca’s. But is Bucky even able to give that life to a child? He can’t even give that life to himself, especially not in a country as oppressive as this. He wouldn’t even want to raise them in the US with the political turmoil happening, the way queers and Black people are treated, the way women are still treated as if their only purpose is to serve men. Bucky doesn’t want a woman to serve him. He doesn’t know what he wants.

The fight leaves him quickly and he collapses into his chair, pulling off his arm and feeling the weight of all his choices settle onto his shoulders. It’s a weight he hasn’t been able to get rid of, no matter how many good people he saves, no matter how many bad people he kills. No matter how much he enjoys it. There’s an evil that roils inside him like nausea, like sickness, like the chaos at the heart of the world, and he can’t bring himself to infect anyone with it.

It’s better that he’s alone, because then he can’t hurt anyone else.

There’s a knock on his door. He wipes the tears from his eyes on his shoulder and opens it. 

“Hi,” Vlad says. His cheeks are pink from the cold but he’s wearing a thin coat and a fur hat. He holds up Bucky’s copy of _Wings_ by Mikhail Kuzmin. “I wanted to return this.”

It’s so ridiculous that Bucky laughs. “You held onto it all this time? For three years?”

Vlad nods, smiling. “I knew I wanted to give it back to you. I couldn’t help but want to see you again.”

There’s something different about Vlad this time. His eyes are clearer; he seems happier and less guarded. The fact that he admitted he wanted to see Bucky again is proof of that. There are age lines at the corners of his eyes, which sparkle with unshed secrets. 

Bucky feels an answering smile. “It’s nice to see you,” he says, pulling Vlad in for a hug. Vlad submits to it easily, wrapping Bucky up in his strong arms. Bucky melts, feeling a sense of being protected, being loved, no matter how untrue it may be. But—Vlad thought of him. Vlad wanted to see him.

Bucky stands back to let him into the apartment. Vlad glances down at his arm but doesn’t say anything. 

“I was in the war,” Bucky says, shrugging. He figures he owes an explanation to somebody.

“The Second World War? You look too young.”

“Vlad, you flatterer.”

Vlad laughs. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, so I can go if it’s too much trouble.”

“No, no,” Bucky says, motioning for his coat. “Please, stay. I want you here.”

Vlad looks away, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. Bucky knows how to work people over, how to get what he wants, and he knows what Vlad wants is someone to show him that they care. He glances at Bucky again. “I, um. I just came over to—”

He stops, and Bucky waits for him to finish his sentence. But he doesn’t.

Vlad kisses him. Whatever internally repressed sense of homosexuality he’d been downplaying these last few years disappears between one press of lips and the next. Bucky holds his breath until they pull apart.

“Was that okay?” Vlad asks. “I haven’t really—”

“Kissed anyone before?”

Vlad smiles bashfully. “Kissed a man. There have been times before, but nothing serious. Nothing like this.”

Bucky pulls him down into another kiss and later, after they’re done, lying spent on Bucky’s mattress, Vlad turns to him with sincerity in his gaze and asks, “Have you ever loved a man?”

Bucky turns onto his side to mirror Vlad’s position. He doesn’t know why he lets himself answer a question like that when he hasn’t let himself think of it in 16 years. “Yes, I have. My best friend from the war.”

“Is he still alive?”

Bucky shakes his head. 

“Did he love you back?”

Bucky shakes his head again. A tear rolls across the bridge of his nose until Vlad reaches out to wipe it away with his thumb. 

“I won’t speak ill of the dead, but how can anyone know you and not love you?”

Bucky closes his eyes against the force of honesty in Vlad’s expression. That sickness roils in his stomach again, a nuclear reactor. It ekes out of his pores, out of his breath. It’s impossible that Vlad can’t see. He must be willfully ignorant.

“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” Vlad says. His voice is a soft rumble that fills all the spaces in the room where Bucky’s loneliness isn’t. 

“I’m not embarrassed.” Bucky opens his eyes again and fakes a smile. “I just think people like what they like. I’m lucky that people like me. I can get anyone to do anything I want and I don’t really have to try.”

Vlad chuckles. “What’s the saying? You have me wrapped around your finger.” Bucky’s smile turns genuine. Vlad reaches out to touch his chin, pressing his finger to the dimple there. “You don’t look a day older.”

“Good genes.” 

Vlad’s eyes narrow. “You’re not what you seem, are you?”

Bucky swallows. _It’s make or break time, Bucko._ He could feign innocence, and Vlad would go along with it. If this were a honeytrap, Vlad would have asked him this before the clothes came off. He’s not wearing a wire, and short of bugging Bucky’s apartment, it would only be his word to go on. But his word is enough. If there are GRU agents waiting to break down the door, then so be it. What has Bucky left to live for, if not love?

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re a spy.”

Bucky nods. “I am.”

“You’re so beautiful, I find it hard to care.” Bucky smothers a laugh in the comforter, and Vlad joins in. “Don’t hide that face. I want to see you.”

Bucky turns onto his back, feeling naked for the first time. Even with his clothes off he’s always managed to stay removed from the emotions of the act of sex, but he’s never had pillow talk quite like this. He just admitted to spying on Vlad’s country; somehow that makes him less emotionally vulnerable than being told he’s so beautiful it doesn’t matter. 

“What do you like about America?”

Bucky shrugs. “Not much. The government is constantly waging war not just on other countries but on its own people. But it’s where my family lives, where I grew up. It’s where I lived with—with him, my best friend. The things I could tell you about Brooklyn after dark.”

Vlad rolls onto his back to speak to the ceiling, showing his own vulnerability, his belly bared. “I’ve been having—doubts. About my role in Soviet leadership. The ambassador—the whole administration, really—they’re ramping up control over the state and her people.” His bare chest rises and falls with his breaths and Bucky gets lost in the motion. He reaches out to run his knuckles over Vlad’s chest hair. “I suppose in some way it’s always been like this, but lately I’ve been rethinking my role in it. My responsibility is to make sure my people have good lives, and that’s not the way our system works. I thought I could change it from the inside, but…” He trails off before turning back to Bucky.

“If you’re looking for answers, I don’t think I have any for you,” Bucky says. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, what I want. I can’t help you any more than I can help myself.”

A crease appears between Vlad’s eyebrows as he frowns. “Are you thinking of leaving?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Bucky realizes as he answers. “What I’m doing here, the life I’m leading—it’s no life at all.” It’s hard to separate what he wants from the job he’s good at, but he did know, once upon a time, what he wanted to do: jack shit. He wanted to eat cobbler pie and write in his diary and he wanted to miss Steve with an intensity that burned like a broken radiator. Bucky feels his despair in his bones.

“I would be sad to see you go,” Vlad admits. If Bucky went back to America, he would never see Vlad again, and the thought of that causes a bubble of anxiety to form in Bucky’s chest.

“What if you came with me?”

Vlad’s expression smooths out and he raises his eyebrows in surprise. “And desert my country?”

“If you care as little about your country as I do mine, then what’s stopping you?”

Vlad sits up and looks down at him. “Are you serious?”

Bucky shrugs again. “Why not? We can protect you. SHIELD would happily bring in an ex-Soviet.”

“In exchange for selling out my country and the people I work with.”

Bucky sits up too. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. That’s the beauty about America. Everyone is out for number one, and no one gives a shit about what you’re doing. Why do you think they’ve allowed me to stay here for so long? No one cares. McCarthyism is over but the world still isn’t kind to people like us. We can make our own way in it.”

Vlad glances away. “Those are pretty words, but they ring hollow to me.”

Bucky sits up too. “You don’t have to do anything.”

Vlad chews on his lip before he looks back. “I saw the photo. You left it in the book.”

Bucky stands immediately, his breath catching in his throat. He pulls on his pants and a sweater, moving into the kitchen.

“Antony,” Vlad says, following him. “Antony, wait.”

“It’s Bucky, actually.”

“Bucky.” Vlad puts his hand on Bucky’s arm, pausing him in the middle of taking the kettle to the kitchen sink. “I don’t know what to do.”

Bucky looks up into his imploring eyes. “You should do whatever feels right to you.”

Vlad sighs and gathers his clothes. Bucky turns away to fill the kettle as Vlad dresses. He follows Vlad to the door. “Can I see you again?”

Bucky nods, smiles. “I’d like that.”

Vlad glances down the hallway, left and right and behind, before he swoops down for another kiss. Bucky is buoyed by it for the rest of the week.

* * *

Vlad comes by often after that, staying for a few hours when he can, or even coming by only long enough to kiss Bucky senseless and then leave again in a whirlwind of wood lacquer and fur. Bucky learns that he carves wooden figures and makes tables in his spare time—he learns this because Vlad brings his gifts like a bowerbird, figurines of Marx and Lenin, wooden utensils, miniature musical instruments. Bucky plies him with books, whatever he can get his hands on—Walt Whitman, James Baldwin, Frederico García Lorca, Michael Dillon’s _Self_ , all gifts from Theresa and Lauren—and Vlad makes Bucky read them to him, lying on the rug in front of the radiator, wrapped up in each other.

“Do you know why our government isn’t in a hurry to land a man on the moon?” Victor asks. “Because what if they refuse to return?”

“What is the difference between Capitalism and Socialism?” Bucky asks. “In Capitalism, man exploits man. In Socialism, it’s the other way around.”

It’s the happiest Bucky has been in years, and they pass eight years like that, in between Vlad’s out-of-country visits and Bucky’s SHIELD missions. Their allegiances to their own countries counter each other, and they work around it by burying their initial conversation about leaving Russia. Vlad wants to stay, and Bucky is just happy to be with him. Bucky moves into Vlad’s house, a kept man. He has everything he needs.

But it all comes crumbling down—Bucky’s false sense of security, the life he’s built with himself under the pretense of doing honest work—with his last mission in Russia. He and a group of SHIELD agents helicopter into the Putorana Plateau to find a Hydra base. Bucky wonders about SHIELD’s turnover rate because he never sees the same agents again, but they’re always well trained and they follow his orders, even to go into the Siberian tundra. When they get inside, the distinct lack of life and destroyed evidence stands out to him. 

The laboratory is fulled of broken beakers and mysterious liquids spilled across desks and on the floor. In the records room, files have been burnt, whole cabinets now hunks of twisted metal, tipped over and smashed. There's another chair, another set of electrodes, and more skin.

As they near the back of the building, the smell of death wafts through the corridors and along with it the bitter almond smell of cyanide. 

“Major Barnes,” his Lieutenant says as he walks into the room first, before he turns his head to throw up. 

The backroom is filled with beds, and in those beds are women and young girls. None of them are moving. When he sees this, he realizes: he’s not the evil in the world. Nothing he’s done makes him like this. He could never kill a child. But fuck, he wishes he could crack some skulls over this.

As Bucky nears the back corner of the room, something moves: a flash of red hair and another of metal, a girl no older than 17 lashing out as he approaches. He drops his rifle and stands back, hands up, removing his mask. She’s wearing pajamas and no shoes.

“It’s alright,” he says, then motions for his soldiers to back down. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“Who are you?” she asks, terror in her voice. In a room full of dead bodies, who wouldn’t be terrified? Bucky is chilled to his core. “How did you find us?”

“We work for SHIELD, an American organization. Have you heard of us?”

She nods. The hand around the knife is steady, but her eyes are wide and fearful. 

“We’re here to get you out. Can you tell us what happened?”

The girl backs away until she hits the wall and drops to a squat. Bucky drops too so they’re on the same level. “They knew you were coming. They burnt the records and trashed the laboratory so you wouldn’t find anything.”

“And the girls?”

A single tear drips down her cheek before she flicks it away with her finger. “They made them take tablets.”

“What are you doing here?” 

“We came from the training facility, two hours north. They must have known we were collateral damage.” She barks out a laugh before it turns into a sob. She slides to the floor with her head in her hands. “I heard them trashing the place and I hid. I’m such a fucking coward.”

Bucky motions to his soldiers. “Check the others. Some might still be alive.” He moves closer to the girl. “What’s your name?”

The girl wipes the tears from her cheeks and says, wetly, “Natalia.”

“Natalia, we’re going to get you out of here, okay? You can come with us and we’ll take you somewhere safe.”

“Nowhere is safe from Hydra.”

Bucky feels a chill down his spine. Natalia’s green eyes shelter secrets and death, and he doesn’t envy the world she’s been brought up in. “I promise you, they won’t get you.”

Natalia hiccups. “I should kill you.”

“Kill me later. We need to get you out of here first.” Bucky’s Lieutenant bends down to whisper in his ear, “All gone,” and Bucky nods. “Do you have a coat? Shoes?”

Natalia points to the corner where there is a pile of clothing. He helps her get dressed and leads her and his men out of the base. As soon as they’re outside, she vomits in the snow and is silent on the ride back. Bucky radios and yells down the line for an hour until they agree to send a plane out to pick her up. Back in Moscow, they only have to wait two hours for someone to come through, one of Stark’s planes landing at the airport. The man himself isn’t there, but Bucky didn’t expect that.

Instead, Agent Carter appears.

“James,” she says, that accent hitting all kinds of wrong wires in Bucky’s brain. 

“Agent Carter,” he says, prickling. “Nice of you to show up.” It only occurs to him later that his dislike of her is unfounded, and then, later after that, over a decade later, that he was right all along.

If she’s shocked at his demeanor, she hides it well. “Hello,” she says to Natalia, “I’m Agent Peggy Carter. I’m here to take you to your new life.”

Natalia turns to Bucky with a look that conveys, _Can you believe this?_ , and Bucky snorts. But she lets Carter hustle her into the plane, with a last look back at him before she disappears inside. Bucky’s not surprised when those green eyes haunt him well into the next decade. 

“Are you coming?” Carter asks.

A lifetime of possibilities flashes before Bucky’s eyes. He says no and stays here; he and Vlad live their lives together. He gets on the plane, he goes back to the States; Vlad stays here, and they never see each other again. He makes Peggy wait for him until Vlad gets here, they go to the States together, they live their lives—in a different oppressive regime, but one where they won’t be executed for the crime of loving each other. He says no, stays here, and they both die, swiftly and without mercy. Bucky knows which one he prefers.

“Can you—will you wait? I need to call someone.” His hand is shaking, and suddenly the adrenaline he doesn’t feel on missions catches up to him. 

“We know about Vladimir,” Carter says.

“Of course you do,” Bucky mutters. “I need to call him.”

Carter stands back and Bucky jumps into the plane, a phone hanging up on the wall as though it was made for him. It rings, and rings, and rings. The interior of the plane, a gaudy purple red with gold trim, seems to close in around him as he waits for the phone to be picked up.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He feels Peggy’s hand on his back.

“James, we must go.”

He tries again. Vlad answers this time, his voice groggy from sleep. “Hello? Bucky?”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Bucky says, hands in his hair. “I can’t—it’s too much. We have to leave. Please come with me. I can’t leave you here, not in this country.”

“Of course, yes. Right now?”

“Yes, sorry, yes. We have to go right now.”

Bucky can hear Vlad’s smile over the phone. “I’ve been waiting eight years for you to ask me this.”

A sob escapes Bucky’s throat. “Come to Sheremetyevo, I’ll meet you.”

“Leaving right now.”

They hang up, and Bucky nearly collapses with relief. The next twenty minutes pass in terse silence as Bucky chews his nail and stands on the tarmac. Carter watches him the whole time, but he finds he can’t care about being under her scrutiny.

It’s not until he sees Vlad appear on the tarmac that Bucky feels any kind of relief from his anxiety. And it’s only after Vlad wraps him up, kissing him, that Bucky remembers the photo.

“Shit, fuck, the book. Did you bring the book?”

“The—?”

“The book!” He flaps his hand to encompass everything the book means to him. “ _Wings_! The book! The photo!”

Vlad looks at him in horror. “No, I didn’t—”

“ _Fuck!_ ” Bucky starts to pace, his thoughts a blur. 

Carter calls from the top of the stairs. “James, we have to leave.”

“Just—” He starts to pace, his mind whirring, all of the possibilities flaring up at once. He goes back for the picture. He doesn’t go. He goes. He doesn’t go—

He goes.

He shoots out of the airport, jumping into a cab to get to Vlad’s house as quickly as possible, but before he can even climb over the gate, a bag is shoved over his head. He’s thrown into the back of a car. It speeds through the city. When he tries to fight back, he’s tased. Eventually, he passes out.

* * *

When they take him to his cell, they kick him so hard they fracture two ribs. They pull off his mechanical arm and smile.

* * *

A day passes. The guards spit on him, starve him, beat him again. No one comes to save him.

* * *

A week. The days blurring into one. Sun going down, pain in his chest so bad he throws up what little they give him to eat. That one summer Steve had whooping cough so bad he cracked a rib. _I’ll never complain about getting a cold again, Stevie, I swear._

* * *

Sometime later. The guards pick him back up. 

_This is it, Bucko._

They talk about execution. Gun to the back of his head, one shot. It doesn’t happen. They knock him out instead.

* * *

He opens his eyes to see the gaudy purple and red. “Fuck you, Howard,” he says. It’s a groggy reprieve to the way his stomach heaves from the pain in his skull. The rocking of the airplane makes him feel ill, but so does everything else.

“James—”

“Fuck.

Carter appears over him. For once, her hair is inelegantly tousled and her lipstick is smudged. 

“Where m’I?”

“On your way back to America. Hush, now. Sleep.”

On the promise of seeing Vlad again, he does.

* * *

Stark is the one to meet them at his private airport, which again Bucky didn’t count on. He looks grave but tries to put on a chipper face. “Howdy, champ.”

Bucky is still groggy from being beaten half to death. The wind whips his hair around his face, stinging in the cold. “Where’s Vlad?”

Stark’s facsimile of a smile falters. “How about we get you to a hospital?”

Bucky stops in his tracks. He points his remaining thumb over his shoulder at the doctor who flew with them. “Saw a doc. Take me to Vlad.”

“Bucky—”

Stark and Carter glance at each other.

“Where,” Bucky starts, “is V—”

“He’s dead,” Carter says. Her expression is diplomatically blank. “He couldn’t let you be executed in a Soviet Gulag, for Christ’s sake.”

Bucky feels close to losing it. His vision blurs as the truth clicks into place, his breaths shortening, his ribs aching as he tries to breathe properly and fails. “No, no you don’t—I have to go back—you don’t unders—”

“I’m not fucking taking you back there,” Stark barks. “Not after what we did to get you out.”

Bucky breathes into his knees, bent over from the pain. “You don’t—I have to—”

“James, you can’t.” Carter’s tone demands respect, but he can’t, he just can’t. “They’ve already executed him.”

A sharp pain lances through Bucky’s body, the physical manifestation of his heart breaking. He must pass out again because when he wakes up it’s to a gold-laden ceiling, sunlight streaming through Venetian blinds, and the smell of fresh laundry. Stark’s house.

He is alone again.


	5. 1970

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has a panic attack in this chapter.

Once again, Bucky throws himself into his work. He hates being in New Jersey almost as much as he hates the thought of going back to Shelbyville where he’ll be useless and docile. At least at Camp Lehigh he can work to ensure the security of the United States intelligence apparatus, something that takes up, if not physical effort, then at least enough mental effort that at the end of each day he’s exhausted. He goes home, watches tv, and falls asleep around 2am to the echoes of gunfire and shellshock in his brain. All in a day’s work.

He’s interrupted from the unending reams of paperwork that get deposited on his desk every morning by a man who seems vaguely familiar. 

“Major Barnes?” The man is wearing civilian gear, and he has the wizened face of someone who has seen some shit. He takes off his bowler hat to step into the room. 

Bucky pushes his wheelie chair back to stand and hold out his hand. “That’s me.”

“You probably don’t remember me, sir, but we served together.”

Bucky bites back the urge to blow him off with some comment about how he doesn’t remember those days, but something stops him. The man looks Bucky’s age—the age Bucky should look, and doesn’t—a ripe old mid-50s. A memory surfaces from two and a half decades ago of news reports and television reels with him and a few other guys. 

“Gabe, right? Gabe Jones.”

The fight at Azzano comes rushing back to him. Tanks, fantastical weapons, men disappearing before their eyes. A dugout, where Bucky, Gabe, and Dum Dum Dugan hid before Bucky got his arm blown off by a grenade. They were hauled to Krausberg pretty quickly, Bucky almost bleeding to death until they put him on that table. 

“No shit. Yeah, I remember you.” 

Gabe shakes Bucky’s hand, beaming as though he’s won a present. “Hard to forget what we went through, much as I try,” Gabe admits, and Bucky nods and chuckles pessimistically. 

“Tell me about it. How’s life been for you?” He motions for Gabe to sit in the chair in front of his desk, and Gabe does, making himself comfortable. 

“Oh, you know.” Gabe waves his hand to encompass the last 28 years of their lives. “Got married, had a couple of kids, found God.”

“Yeah? And what’s he saying?”

“Not much these days.” Gabe grins and Bucky grins back. He’s not sure why; a reminder of the past isn’t exactly welcome, but Gabe was always a good guy, from what Bucky remembers.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

Gabe nods. “I haven’t been in the game for a while. After the war, I was pretty listless and, well—depressed, I guess you can call it. PTSD, according to the counselor at the VA.” Bucky nods for him to go on. He’s done the research, read the reports, and written a few himself. “I decided enough was enough and got my life on track. Found a job working with the transit system. Nothing fab but it’s easy work and it pays the bills.”

“Easy, huh? Maybe I should get in on that.”

Gabe smiles. “I came by because a bunch of us from the war get together now, whenever we’re in town. Dugan’s still doing god knows what overseas—man’s got a death wish as big as the Baltic—but Falsie and Morita live close and Dernier’s going to be in town next week. We thought you might like to join us.”

Bucky is taken aback. It’s not the first offer of friendship he’s had from a soldier, but it is the most genuine. All the years of keeping to himself, of repressing his memories, of growing hardened at the sight of so much death, don’t mean much in front of Gabe’s smile. He waits patiently for Bucky’s answer.

“Yeah, actually. That sounds great.”

“Great. We’re meeting at Nickel’s Alley next Saturday night. Think you can make it?”

It’s an easy out to take if Bucky wants to. A simple, _Sorry, no can do_ , and Gabe would accept it. But something gives Bucky pause. Maybe it’s that terrible loneliness that has plagued him throughout the decades, or maybe it’s how much he misses Vlad, or maybe it’s boredom from a job that, like Gabe says, pays the bills but not much else, but Bucky takes the opportunity to be a real-life person instead of just existing. 

“Yeah, pal. Sure. I’ll be there.”

Gabe smiles wider and holds out his hand. “I gotta get back to it, but it was great seeing you again, Major Barnes.”

“Bucky, please.” Bucky shakes his hand and leads him to the door.

“Bucky.” Gabe turns to go but stops in the doorway. “He talked about you, you know. The Captain. Wouldn’t shut up about you, actually. Might be nice to hear some stories about him, for a change.”

Gabe leaves without another word passing between them. No one bothers Bucky for the rest of the afternoon, leaving him to cry alone in his office, haunted by the ghosts of decades past.

* * *

Even after popping out three kids, Agent Carter is a force to be reckoned with. Maybe even more so now that her kids are grown and she has nothing holding her back from conquering the world. 

She pours Bucky a glass of expensive scotch and kicks her shoe-less feet up on her desk. “Pym’s still in deep with those particles. He thinks I don’t realize what he’s doing. Right under SHIELD’s nose, for Christ’s sake.”

“He just likes to make waves,” Bucky says, into his scotch. “He’s pretty harmless.”

“God forbid he somehow invents a time machine and screws the entire universe.”

Bucky chuckles. “Don’t put too much faith in the man.”

“Oh, trust me,” Peggy says, narrowing her eyes at him. “I won’t.”

They drink in silence for a minute as people rush by in the halls. Peggy’s office is in the main part of the bunker where people can find her easily. As the head of SHIELD, it’s her job to be the people person, the woman of the hour. She loves people, she does, but Bucky can see the bureaucracy wearing her down little by little. Like him, she’s better suited to being out in the field instead of cutting through red tape. 

“How did we end up here, James?” she muses. She sits back in her chair to stare up at the ceiling. “Two old bastards like us, on top of the world but living beneath it.”

“You tell me, Peggy. All I know is one day I went to war and then woke up without an arm. Shipped myself off to Russia, and here I am.”

Peggy turns her head to look at him. Her eyes are big, shining, when she says, “I never did apologize for that, did I?”

Bucky clears his throat and readies himself for whatever she’s about to say. “It was my choice to go. Couldn’t sit around here doing nothing.”

“No, not Russia exactly. I mean Vlad. I didn’t apologize for what happened to him.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. “How about you don’t apologize? Then we can forget it ever happened.”

Peggy takes her feet off her desk and leans forward in her chair. “I don’t want to forget. That’s your problem: you’re always trying to forget the past. But that just means you can’t heal from it.”

Bucky drains his glass and drops it on her desk. “It was nice seeing you, Peggy.”

“James, wait.”

Bucky sighs and leans back in his chair. “What do you want from me, exactly?”

“I want us to be friends.”

“We are friends.”

“No, we’re not. The things that have happened between us—we have common ground, but we’re not friends, not really. You still harbor some resentment towards me. I know you do so don’t deny it. And I want to put it behind us.”

Bucky glances down at his hands, one metal sheathed in skin, the other veined and looking like it did when he was 26. Even his scars are gone. He took a knife to the stomach in 1954 and it healed in two weeks. He can’t forget that, either.

“I can’t talk about what happened,” he admits. “It’s too much for me. Do you get that?”

Peggy nods. “I do. But I also know that pretending it never happened won’t help you heal from it.”

Bucky scrubs a hand over his face. He feels as old every bit as old as his 53 years, and also, somehow, like the petulant teenager his mother worried he would become.

He looks at the picture Peggy has on her desk. How could he possibly forget, when he sees Steve’s face in the photo on her desk every time he comes in here? How could she possibly make this any harder on him? He opens his mouth to tell her that every time he comes here it’s like another knife in his gut, but something moves in the reflection of the glass—a flash of blond, those deep blue eyes. Bucky whirls around in his chair. But there’s nothing there. 

There’s never anything there.

* * *

Nickel’s Alley is a lively dive bar in Paramus, which Bucky swore he would never go to let alone enjoy the nightlife there. He makes his way to the back of the bar where Gabe is drinking a beer with three other guys. Bucky recognizes them instantly: Jim Morita, James Falsworth, and Jacques Dernier. 

“Fellas,” Gabe says, standing up from his stool. “This is Bucky.”

Dernier gabbles excitedly in French and Falsworth lifts his glass of port in acknowledgment. 

“Thought you’d be taller,” Morita says, and the others burst into laughter. 

Bucky smirks. “What’s that, Sergeant? Sorry, I can’t hear you from all the way down there.”

The others laugh harder, and Morita offers to shout another round for them. Bucky orders a beer, because that’s what you do when you’re at a bar, and takes the offered stool Gabe pulls out for him. 

“You need to settle a dispute for us,” Gabe says. “What did Oliver Matthews get the Medal of Honour for? Was it stopping a suicide bomber or ripping his own leg off after being pinned down by a truck?”

Bucky searches his memory for a cue. “Suicide bomber. It was Greg Purcell who ripped his own leg off.”

“Tough motherfucker,” Gabe says.

“Bit of an arsehole, though, I must admit,” Falsworth says.

“It’s no use speaking ill of the dead,” Dernier says, with a forlorn look. “But major arsehole, I agree.”

They lapse into easy conversation, and despite Bucky being on alert, no one mentions Steve, and the night passes without incident. Gabe walks him to his cab and claps him on the back before he gets in. 

“It was really nice seeing you again, man.”

“Likewise,” Bucky says, with a grin that isn’t even a little bit feigned. He forgot what it was like to share space with people who know what he’s been through and aren’t trying to—what did Peggy say?—make him _heal from it_. They accept the shit they went through, and they’ve moved on to the point where they can talk about it. No labels, no judgment. 

They exchange numbers on the promise that they’ll do this again soon, and Bucky means it. He goes to bed that night feeling a little less alone in the world.

* * *

Hundreds of thousands of protestors line the streets to protest the invasion of Cambodia, and all Bucky can do is sit behind his desk like a fucking coward.

* * *

It’s not until June of 1971 that he even learns the word “bisexual”. He watches the news reports of the Hollywood Boulevard parade and says the words to himself.

“I’m bisexual. Bucky Barnes, bisexual.”

It doesn’t feel right.

He looks in the mirror, at the face that hasn’t aged, that no longer bears the strife he’s seen.

“I’m gay,” he says, watching the way his mouth moves. “I’m a gay man.” He looks into his own eyes as though gazing into an abyss. “I’m queer. I’m a homo. Bucky Barnes, certified gay man, pleased to meet you.”

Only his reflection gazes back.

* * *

“You know,” Gabe says, after a couple of drinks at Bumper’s, “I looked you up a couple of years ago. You’re a hard man to find.”

Bucky shrugs. He’s still nursing his one beer. “Bucky Barnes didn’t exist for 22 years.” He continues, in Russian, “Antony Sergeevich Zhilin, at your service.”

“A man of the people!” Dernier cries in Russian. He continues, in an atrocious American accent, “Hey, dude, it’s so good to meet you.”

The whole table cracks up. 

“You hear they’re doing some investigation in Detroit?” Gabe asks the table at large.

“Yeah, I heard,” Morita says. None of them are heavy drinkers anymore, at least not to the extent they were in the war. He nurses a scotch and watches the people around them, the last dregs of the hippie phase that passed Bucky by completely, the conservatives in their suits that look at Gabe’s group like they’re the scum of the earth. “And it’s about time. The shit they’re doing over there now, it’s barbaric. Wasn’t like that in our day.”

“Don’t start in with that ‘in our day’ shit,” Gabe says and punches Morita on the arm. “We’re already over the hill, don’t make us any worse.”

“Yeah, yeah, you old bastard,” Morita grumbles. “Times, they are a-changin’.”

Gabe’s sweet voice croons the chorus, barely loud enough to be heard over the jukebox, and a hush comes over their corner of the bar. Bucky feels a chill down his spine, and it’s like they are the only ones in the world, at least until Gabe stops singing. And then the world comes back.

* * *

Tony Stark at two years old is as rambunctious as a two-year-old can be. When Howard talks about him, Bucky can tell he’s proud, but when it’s just the three of them in Howard’s ridiculous drawing-room, Maria taking a day off and Jarvis with the cooks in the kitchen, Howard spends the time scowling. Tony trips over his own feet and sends a vase crashing to the ground.

“Alright, you little shit,” Howard says, picking him up to bounce Tony on his hip.

“You’ve really got it figured out,” Bucky says, impressed. “A wife, a kid, this stupid house.”

Howard leads Tony around the room in a waltz, still scowling. Bucky can’t tell where he’s coming from, and he assumes nothing.

“You could say that,” Howard says. Tony squeezes Howard’s face between his fat, little fists. Howard blows a raspberry and Tony shrieks in delight. “Why? You think about giving up the ghost?”

Bucky laughs. “And do what, exactly?”

“Do what I did.”

“Almost start a nuclear war?”

“No, the other thing. Wife, kid, house.”

Bucky sighs. They’ve had this conversation many times over the years, the same iteration of Howard refusing to accept what Bucky is, who Bucky is. “I’m gay, Howard.”

“Hey, there are all kinds of procedures being invented. Also, there is such a thing as a turkey baster.”

Bucky wrinkles his nose. All their conversations end up circular, an ouroboros eating its own tail. Bucky would eat his own foot if it meant Stark would shut the hell up about being normal, about conforming to an expectation that would crush Bucky if he did. 

“I don’t think I’m cut out for having a kid.”

“Hey, you can always babysit for me and find out.” He dumps Tony in Bucky’s lap, and Bucky wraps him up to stop him from propelling himself onto the floor. “You good here? I gotta run.”

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky says, but Howard is already pulling his coat on. “ _Howard_ —” 

“I’ll be back in an hour, don’t worry.” He disappears out of the drawing-room between one breath and the next.

Bucky looks at Tony, the picture of angelic in his little red overalls, his dark hair sticking up in a halo, his bulbous brown eyes. Bucky kisses the top of his head and hugs him close as Tony gabbles in baby speak. Bucky watches in pride as he proceeds to continue making a mess of the room, but he knows it’s too late for him now. Who knows how long whatever they did to him will last?

* * *

(1972)

He gets the call from Becca on a Wednesday morning, and by that night he’s sitting around with his siblings in their parents’ living room. 

“Car accident” was the official cause of death, but Winifred and George were old, and Bucky was expecting it. But not like this. 

Becca lays her head on his shoulder, crying silently. He looks at the rest of his family, Alice and Tommy 35 years old now, and Amy June 27. They’re sitting with John in front of the hearth, going through old family albums as Alice points out events from their past. 

“I don’t know who this is.” Alice holds a photo out to Bucky and Becca. “Who’s the blond guy? I kind of vaguely recall him, but not really?”

Becca takes the photo, wiping her tears. “That’s Steve. He was a friend of ours.”

“He’s in a lot of these photos,” Amy June points out. “What happened to him?”

Becca glances at Bucky, but Bucky says nothing. “He died in the war.”

“Kind of skinny to be fighting in a war,” Tommy says, and then looks up at Becca. “Sorry, Becs, don’t mean any disrespect. But, you know, still skinny.”

Becca huffs out a laugh and then turns those beautiful brown eyes at Bucky. “I think about him when I think of you, you know,” she says, quietly enough that the others can’t hear. Bucky’s throat grows tight. He’s been on the verge of tears for hours, but this might be the thing that tips him over. “I know it’s been hard on you—”

“Becs,” he says, pleading, “don’t. Please. I can’t—not right now.”

“Okay,” she says, resolutely, “but one day. I’m serious, Bucky. You need to talk about him.”

“I will,” he says, feeling the lie like venom behind his teeth. “I’ve been thinking of visiting you in Shelbyville again. I kind of miss the place.”

“We’ll be moving house in a month,” she says. “Don’t worry, I already packed up all of your stuff. I can have it shipped out here, if you like.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I’m not ready to look through it,” he admits, because it’s safe to admit that, and if he can’t talk to Becca about this, then who can he talk to?

“Okay,” she says, smiling at him. “We’ll keep it for you.”

The funeral is closed-casket, and they’re buried in twin lots in their family’s cemetery, where Bucky will be buried one day, when his age catches up to him. He sees the Joneses there, and Valerie, but between thanking people for coming and keeping his own emotions in check, he barely has time to sit one-on-one with anybody. 

They have the repast back at their house, and John and Amy cook enough food for the 100 or so people who pass through throughout the day and night. Tommy puts some records on, old big band music that fills the house with sound and life. 

“Can you believe they were so popular?” Becca asks, as she and Bucky clean the fourth load of dishes. Bucky washes and Becca dries, falling back into their old pattern as easily as they do into conversation. Loving someone your whole life means ease around each other that nothing can imitate.

“Mom, yeah, I can believe that. But dad was an old bastard who never had a good word to say. Maybe they’re here to make sure he’s dead.”

Becca laughs and then scowls, caught between the way grief makes some things funnier and others sadder. The silver in her hair spreads more each passing year, and age lines crease her delicate features. Bucky has stopped looking in the mirror, affronted at what he used to see, disgusted by the curse of youth. There must be a photo of him somewhere, aged beyond recognition in counterpoint to the way his body doesn’t age; perhaps it’s the soul inside him growing increasingly weathered. He’s afraid to take photos of himself for what he might see staring back at him. 

“I worry about you, Bucky,” she says, and it’s interesting to hear her say that again after all these years.

“I know, Becs,” he says, kissing the top of her head as he wraps his soapy arms around her. “But I’m good, I promise.”

“No, you’re not,” she says into his chest.

No, he’s not.

* * *

Becca and John decide to move into Winifred and George’s house instead of putting it on the market. For someone who hated growing up here so much she left the first chance she got, she sure was quick to snap this place up. “Too much history in these walls,” Becca says, but Bucky knows it’s mostly to keep an eye on him. He doesn’t mind. He relishes the excuse to leave his bachelor pad and swing by to spend the weekend in his old room, eating Becca’s cooking instead of microwaveable vegetarian dishes. She takes cooking classes and invites the friends she makes over to eat meals with their hands, Eritrean food, Indian dishes, Italian pasta—any recipes she can find. 

Bucky is full to the brim with happiness, lying on the sofa with his feet in Becca’s lap as she reads by lamplight. He takes note of the surroundings of the living room in a way he hasn’t in years, maybe ever. The walls are adorned with framed pictures of the family, dozens of them making a patchwork of memories and celebrations. He keeps all his pictures of Vlad in a shoebox under his bed. 

“I think,” he starts, and Becca puts her book in her lap. “I think I’m ready to talk about Vlad.”

She smiles at him softly, the silver in her hair shining in the light that casts shadows across her face. “I’d love to hear about him.”

Bucky didn’t keep his partnership with Vlad a secret from Becca, and she and Vlad talked on the phone from time to time, chatting about books, films, and the ballets that Bucky was too pedestrian to really enjoy. As he opens up about their life together, he feels a release inside his chest, a weight lifting. He thought it would be worse to remember, but talking about him is cathartic, even though he cries several times. They stay up until the late hours of the morning trading stories—Bucky about his life in Russia, Becca about hers in Shelbyville in the intervening years—until the sun crests over the horizon, shining through the window to bath them in a golden glow.

* * *

(1975)

Peggy tries to hide the fact that she’s been sleeping in her office, but the rumpled sofa and mounting collection of paperbacks and teacups tell Bucky the truth. He finds her crying one morning, and they’re friends now, right? So he takes a seat beside her and puts his hand on her shoulder, saying nothing and waiting for her to speak first.

“I should be stronger than this,” she says, her voice thick with mucus. “Daniel and I—we’ve been going through a rough patch.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She shrugs, a gesture that is all too uncertain for the woman he’s come to know as unbreakable and unshakeable. But even marble can crack.

“He says I work too much. That I keep too many secrets. He doesn’t understand the weight I carry.”

“And what do you say?”

She turns to him, eyes shining with tears, wiping away the ones that spill over. “Truthfully?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m asking.” He gives her a brave smile that he doesn’t feel. Even after all these years, he still harbors a resentment that makes no sense to him. What did she ever do? What could she have possibly done?

“It’s his anniversary. Thirty years to the day. I’ve been counting.”

Bucky doesn’t ask who she’s talking about. He knows, because deep down he’s been counting too.

She’s still looking at him, searching his face for—something. Maybe a sign of recognition, something that tells her she’s not making it up in her head, that what she feels is true and real, but Bucky’s been going crazy since 1945 and he’s not sure himself if anything is real. 

“I guess you could say I’m still in love with Steve. That I never stopped.”

What she does next blindsides Bucky at the same time he’s seen it coming for years. She leans in close and presses her lips to his as he sits frozen in horror. It only lasts a second before he pushes her away. 

“I’m not him,” he croaks out, his throat tight, his voice unforgiving. “You can’t make me replace him.”

“James, I’m not—I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m so sorry.”

She puts her head in her hands and continues to cry. The cogs of his mind spin in overtime from the events of the last ten seconds, and he has to get out of here. He leaves her there to cry while he stumbles out of the room, his vision blurring, his breaths coming short and sharp as he collapses in the hallway, his head between his knees. He stays like that for a long time, well past the point of embarrassment. Someone brings him a glass of water and sets it by his hip. 

It could be hours later that he gets up, but he does get up, and that’s the most important thing. He gets back up.

* * *

It’s in June of 1976 that any semblance of normalcy that Bucky has built for himself, any sense of surety of the world and his place in it, is thrown into the junkyard of the past, never to be seen again.

He gets the call from Amy June at 6:41 am while he’s making breakfast.

“Bucky, I am so sorry,” she says, her voice terrified. “It was my fault, I’m sure of it, I thought I checked everything in the house, Mom put me in charge of packing your room, I’m—fuck, shit, damn—”

“Woah, hold up.” He licks peanut butter off his thumb and puts the phone on loudspeaker. “What’s wrong, June-bug?”

“Haven’t you seen the news?”

“I try not to infect my mind this early in the morning.”

She makes a sound like a small sob. “Okay, murder me if you must, but just know it was entirely by accident. I have all your diaries, Steve’s drawings—it’s just the letters I don’t have.”

He flicks on the television and the morning news pops up. As the news anchor says the words, “love letters of Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America,” Bucky feels his legs give way underneath him and he sinks into his armchair. 

“—to a man believed to be his best friend from before the war, a Bucky Barnes. No one knows where this Bucky is now, but one thing is for certain: Steve Rogers loved him, in a way wasn’t societally acceptable during the war.”

Amy June continues, “We think that the people who moved in after we picked them up. We can’t get a name from our realtor, but we’re working on it. They’ve kept silent, apparently distributed the letters to the New York Times, probably got paid a shit load, let’s be real.”

“Honey, sorry, I have to go.”

“I’m so sorry, Uncle Buck.”

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. Okay? I don’t blame you one bit.”

She’s crying now, her voice thick with it. “Love you, Bucky.”

“Love you too, honey.”

An electrical hum fills Bucky’s mind as he watches the rest of the broadcast. He catches phrases like “enduring love story for the ages”, “what might have happened, had he lived?” and “a gay icon that could propel the world into the new century.” The letters that they exchanged are projected onto the screen for him to relive.

“The USA has just seen its first Gay Pride Parade only a few years ago now,” one of the news anchors says. He’s wearing a horrible toupe that doesn’t match the color of his eyebrows, and Bucky hates it with an indefinable passion, because it’s the only emotion he knows how to express right then. He hates the person who published these letters, whoever they are. He hates himself for not realizing what Steve was saying all those years ago. He hates the world for dissecting something they have no right to pry into. 

He walks into the street in a daze with a couple of bucks in his hand to pay for the morning newspaper, which has the headline splashed across the front page: _UNCOVERING THE MANTLE OF LOVE: CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY BARNES_.

He manages to make it home, where he sits calmly at his round kitchen table, in his one chair, a pot of tea brewing in front of him from breakfast half an hour earlier. His hand shakes as he makes himself turn the page to where the letters are photographed in full.

As soon as he opens it he realizes: it wasn’t just the letters they wrote to each other. There were others, too, others Bucky never read. Others Steve never mailed. 

There are ten of them, ranging from one line to several pages each. Bucky can barely focus on the words in front of him.

_—my ma always used to say that we were trouble, but I was the one getting us into it and you were the one getting us out of it. What a pair we made, huh, Buck? If those kids could see us now, an ocean apart and hell between us, they’d just about shit themselves. Nothing came between us then, and like hell it’s going to come between us now. I’ll make my way back to you, I swear I—_

The phone rings again, and he barely manages to answer it before it stops. 

“Hullo?”

“James, it’s Peggy.”

“Right.” He bites back the “what do you want” that sparks in his brain like stone on flint. 

“Are you coming into the office today?”

“I, um. I guess? Should I stay at home?”

“No, I think it’s better you come in. At least for a briefing. Or we can come to you.”

The only place Bucky wants to be is with Becca, but he agrees to come in anyway. 

When he gets into Peggy’s office, the sofa looks less rumpled and she’s put the tea-stained paperbacks into her bookshelf. She’s joined by Howard Stark and another man Bucky hasn’t met yet. 

“Major Barnes, this is Sergeant Nicholas Fury. He’s part of our PR department.”

Fury holds his hand out and Bucky shakes it. “It’s an honor, sir,” he says. 

“So you’ve seen the news,” Bucky says. 

“You’re really up shit creek now, bud,” Stark says. “How you managed to turn the greatest soldier in history into gay pride’s biggest asset, I’ll never—”

“Shut the fuck up, Howard,” Carter says. It’s so out of the blue for her to swear like that that the whole room falls silent. “What we need now is a way to spin this before it gets out of control. No one knows who you are just yet, and I assume you want to keep it that way.”

Bucky nods.

“Great. We plan to keep your identity under wraps until you choose to—well, come out about who you are and your relationship with Steve. There’s not much we can do about the letters, but we can spin Steve’s image into something more palatable for a mainstream audience.”

Fury speaks up. “First we need to appoint a spokesperson. Agent Carter, while you are the head of SHIELD, you also are one the people who knew Captain Rogers best.”

“What about me?” Stark asks, mock-offended. “Don’t I get a say?”

“No,” Carter and Bucky say at the same time. 

Fury continues, “If we want to get a hold of this narrative, we need to do it soon. It’s pretty clear where Captain Rogers was coming from, politically speaking, so it’s no use to come out and say that he didn’t mean it. We have to be pragmatic. Captain Rogers said what he said, he meant it, and there’s no getting around that.”

Carter takes notes on a scrap piece of paper among the piles on her desk. Bucky needs something to do with his hands, clenching them around nothing until he closes them around his belt buckle.

“We can say that none of us had any idea, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we make it clear he wasn’t a danger to anyone. He never abandoned his post, he never put his relationship with Major Barnes ahead of anyone else on his team, and he never seduced any young men.”

“Christ,” Bucky says, “we’re gay, not pedophiles.”

“Unfortunately, the world hasn’t yet come around to the difference.”

Bucky sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Anything else?”

“If you want to have a hand in what Agent Carter says, we’d value your input.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I’m fine with whatever. The damage is already done, right? Can’t make it any worse.”

Fury nods. “Thank you for your support, Major.” 

Bucky likes this kid. Bucky was a sergeant when he was Fury’s age, and he can see the beginnings of a great man in him. As long as the military-industrial complex doesn’t pulverize him into a million little pieces. Bucky wonders when it’s going to stop chewing and finally spit him out, if it’ll be after he’s dead, if he’ll be able to weather the storm of what’s coming. 

Bucky drives back home in more or less the same daze he came into Camp Lehigh with that morning. This isn’t the first time his entire life has changed within a day, and if he has to pinpoint them all then he might as well go insane.

* * *

Vlad would know how to help Bucky through this. That’s not the only thought he has while lying motionless on his bed, staring at the green wallpaper, its concentric circles the most 70s thing he can think of, but it is the one that sticks out to him most. Over the last year, he’s had more and more conversations with Becca about Vlad, and he’s been healing, slowly but surely, from the gaping hole in the center of his being that was drilled into him when Vlad died. When Vlad gave himself up for Bucky. He’s stopped asking the question, “How am I supposed to forgive him for leaving me?” and moved onto other questions, like “What steps can I take to live the life he wanted me to live?”

But right then, he misses Vlad with an intensity that he’s never felt before. He misses Steve. It seems unspeakably cruel that he would lose the two loves of his life, and that he would keep on living.

He hates Steve for keeping this from him. He hates the years he wasted thinking he was the only one who felt that way. He hates how he moved on, and how he hasn’t moved on, not really, not at all. He hates how the world keeps reminding him of the people he’s lost, how he lost himself in his love as well. He hates how he became a different person with the force of love that bore down on him, because he doesn’t know who he is now without it. 

And that’s the truth. Without Steve’s love to ground him, he lost himself. And when he found Vlad, he found a different version of himself. And now they’re both gone, he has to live with whoever he is now. What is tomorrow, in a lifetime full of yesterdays? He doesn’t know what he’s living for. He just knows that he has to keep going, for Steve and Vlad, even if every part of him wants to die, because he owes it to them to live the life they both died for. He has to, for them, and for his love for them.

* * *

_You told me once you wanted to buy a pomegranate tree and a backyard to put it in, where we could carve our initials into it so that in generations’ time the people living there would know who we were. So many seasons I spent watching you devour them like a king, but when I ate them I could never figure out just what was so special. But you’d share them with me, and I’d eat them, because sometimes love is carving your name into the bark of a tree, and other times it’s sharing a piece of fruit on a fire escape while the sun sets on a September afternoon. The sunlight turned your hair amber and I’d itch for the right color pencil to shade it on a scrap of paper. God I was happy. I was so happy._

* * *

Gabe’s house is a sturdy, American Craftsman situated in the Jersey suburbs. Bucky turns up with a curry made by Becca, four blocks of chocolate, and a bottle of red wine. Gabe’s wife Kimberly greets him at the door with a smile and takes his offered gifts.

“Bucky, it’s so good to meet you.” She ushers him in with a look along the darkened street. 

“It’s really good to meet you too,” he says, and she kisses him on the cheek before leading him into the living room where the last remaining Howlies sit around the television. There’s a game on, and Morita is cheering. 

Gabe waves at Bucky and then pats the seat next to him for Bucky to take a seat. “Good to see you, man.” He hands Bucky a can of chilled beer.

“You too, pal.”

“It’s good you’re not spending Easter alone. People like us, we need good friends around us.”

Bucky thinks about this for a second. It’s weird to think of himself as having friends after a lifetime of purposefully isolating himself. “We’ve gone through some shit together.”

“Too right, we have.” Gabe knocks their beers together. There is a light in his eyes that never seems to go out, a brightness that eclipses all of Bucky’s pessimistic thoughts. He just has to look at Gabe to see the optimistic side of things. 

“Where are the kids?”

“They get together in Sioux Falls every year. We keep telling them to come back up here but they get on fine without us. But Korama’s due in two months, so we’ll travel down to see her and Michael.”

Bucky smiles as Gabe talks about his family. Later, they say grace around the table and cheers to family and friends that aren’t there, and Bucky looks around the room with a burgeoning sense of happiness. It’s nice to have friends.

* * *

_You were always trying to feed me, I remember that so clearly. Of course with the serum, I remember pretty much everything, but that stands out to me most. On cold nights I think about your godawful excuse for cooking, always trying to cram mash potatoes in my mouth, your adventures with spices that almost burned the house down several times. What I wouldn’t give for some of that right now. I know Becca’s fattening you up, and she should, because I know what it’s like to be hungry down to the bones of you. But I think about you with a different kind of hunger, the kind that started when I was 12 and you were 13 and I realized what it meant to want someone in a way other than friends. It was a horrible kind of feeling, a no-good, can’t take it back now kind of feeling that I knew I’d be stuck with for the rest of my miserable life, and sometimes I thought it was better for me to die than never get that feeling back from you. Sometimes I thought you did. I was 13 years old when my balls dropped and I got hair in uncomfortable places and I was all kinds of sweaty just being near you, but you still looked at me like I was the only thing worth looking at, and sometimes I’d think, he loves me, I know he does, he loves me in that no good way I love him. But I never said anything, I never said it then, and I’m too much of a coward to send these letters now, but I promise you once I get home to you I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything._

* * *

(1978)

He’s stupid not to see it. It’s his job to look after his division, but mostly he spends his time chatting to the new recruits, acting as a sort of surrogate uncle figure for the ones who got kicked out of home and joined the army for lack of any better options. He always asks them what they joined for, and the answers run along the same lines: money, to defend their country, and “I don’t know.”

He spends less time doing paperwork because it’s worse than dying alone, so when he does see it, when he does read about Operation Paperclip, it’s a blow not only to his faith in the organization he works for, but also to his ego. How could he have expected any different? 

The lab is buried under fourteen floors and a morgue, for a reason he’s never given thought to before. He races to the elevator with his heart pounding in his chest, reminding him of how alive he is, how mortal, how fragile. When he gets to the lab, the first thing he sees is a ghost from his past, and everything he’d been repressing from the war comes back to smack him full force. The way they cut into him. The injections. Does it hurt now. What about now. Now here. What’s your name. What do you remember. The pain, the pain, the pain. 

His fist hits the side of Zola’s face with enough force that they both go tumbling down, but then Bucky is on top of him, hitting him over and over as he cries out. He keeps pummelling at Zola’s face until arms pull him back, lifting him up to throw him against the wall. 

Fury’s hand on his chest pins him there, and Bucky simmers in his incalculable rage. 

“Easy, Major,” Fury says, as calm as can be. Bucky’s heart is going to burst in his chest and he can barely see through the righteous anger. “Take it easy.”

“You don’t know what he did,” Bucky gasps out. “You don’t know the things—”

The lab door slides open and Carter walks in, furious. “James!”

“Agent Carter, I swear to fucking Christ—”

“Come with me,” Carter says, her hands on her hips before she turns. “Right now.”

Bucky follows, because what else can he do? Short of killing Zola right there and facing a life sentence, he’s got no recourse. Whatever SHIELD is doing with the man, he’s worth more to them than Bucky probably is. 

Carter struts to the end of the hall and jams her finger into the elevator button. Bucky breathes heavily as they wait for it. His hands are covered in blood. There’s a tooth mark in his knuckle. 

She waits until they’ve climbed the fourteen floors and taken to her office to speak. 

“I know what he did—“

“No, you don’t,” Bucky says.

“I read the report you made.”

“I sanitized the report.” Steve had been standing over him the whole time, his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, breathing steady. Bucky could hear both of their heartbeats, Bucky’s a few beats faster, and he knew something was wrong. They’d done something to him, changed him. 

Carter is still angry, but the fight leaves Bucky quickly and he drops onto her sofa, staring at his hands. 

“Regardless, he is a valuable asset to SHIELD. The kind of knowledge he has can bring about advancements the likes of which we have never seen before.”

“What, like more chemical weapons?”

Carter pierces him with her stare. “Whose arm do you think you’re carrying, James?”

A cold dread slides into his chest. “Are you telling me that this—this thing I’ve been using for fucking _30 years_ ,” his voice drops to a menacing whisper, “was made by the man who _tortured and killed hundreds of people in those factories_? He’s the reason Steve’s dead. If it wasn’t for him, Schmidt wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as he was.” 

Carter takes a breath through her nose. “I know this is difficult to comprehend—” 

“Actually,” Bucky says, standing again. “It’s not. It’s entirely fucking reasonable for an organization that prioritizes technology over lives.” 

Bucky makes it to the door before he turns back with a sneer, ripping his keycard off his belt to toss onto her desk. “Steve never once mentioned you. Did you know that? Not in any of the letters he sent me.” He doesn’t wait for her answer before he slams the door behind him hard enough to rattle the window pane.

He stalks towards Howard’s office with a single-minded determination, shucking his jacket and undoing the buttons on his shirt so that by the time he’s barged in, he can rip his prosthesis off and slam it down on Howard’s desk. 

“Thanks for fucking nothing,” he spits, while Howard stares slack-jawed at him. And then he leaves the compound for the last time, feeling better about this than any other decision he’s made in the last 30 years.

* * *

_It hurts me to know that people like us aren’t worth shit. In a world where I can defy the army and come out with a couple of medals, I know I’d be discharged all the same for telling them I love a fella. Dishonorably discharged, institutionalized, hell, thrown into one of those camps that Hitler’s got cooking up. Maybe if we were born in another time I could walk tall and say, this is me, this is who I am, and you know what? Fuck that. Fuck that right to hell. I’m saying it now, and when we win the war and I get to come home to your smiling face, I’ll stand up in the street and say it. This is who I am. This is me. And the world will love me for it or they won’t, I just don’t care, because I know there are others like me who will stand up too. And we’ll win that war too._

_Maybe we’ll grow old enough to know that people don’t gotta fight to be seen and to love each other. Maybe we can find some people like us, like Sappho and Josephine Baker and Achilles and Patroclus. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs once said, “I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt.” Do you think he was talking about Hydra or the hydra that is the way society feels about people like us? I think it’s both. What I’m learning is that they’ve both been around a lot longer than we think they have. Freud thinks that what we have is neurosis, and what women have is a mental illness, and I think that’s bullshit of the highest fucking order. What I feel for you, that ain’t something that’s gonna damn me to hell. That ain’t something I need to apologize for, and it ain’t something I’m gonna apologize for. It completes me. My love for you is the truest and more pure force in the world, even when it ain’t so pure, even when I think of holding you down and making you moan my name, even when I wanna lick every inch of you until you quake so bad the earth quakes with you. It’s the best thing I have to give, and if you don’t want it, that’s fine, but I have it anyway, and it’s worth more than my life. This love, it’s gonna be the death of me, but I’ll die happy, one way or another._

* * *

He moves back to New York. It’s the natural progression of being 61, looking 35, and feeling 102, to move back to where his life started. He opens a studio in SoHo with an apartment above and buys a new camera with some of the money from Vlad’s will. He puts an ad in the local papers for models. He travels around the city, taking photos of things that spark his muse.

On a random Thursday morning, he’s reading through _The Village Voice_ when someone knocks on his door. He barely gets it open before a voice that drills a hole right into his nostalgia center says, “Look what the fuckin’ cat dragged in.”

Theresa looks older, but she’s still got the same keen gaze she always did, and now she’s wrapped in fur, Gucci glasses, and platform boots. She looks fantastic. 

“As I live and breathe.” He wraps her up in a hug that gets her fur right in his nose before he lets her inside.

She whistles as she takes in the space. “Nice place, pity about the clothes.”

He looks down at his flared jeans and crocheted v-neck. “I look nice.”

She lowers her shades to give him a look. “For a ho-down, maybe. For wrastlin’ some pigs.”

He puts his hand over his heart. “I would never. Pigs are my friends.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Still on the veggie kick then? Didn’t think you could stick it out all these years.”

“Apparently you underestimated your favorite worker.” He laughs at her expression. 

“Christ, never gonna live that one down.”

He leads her to his back office that doubles as a darkroom. Theresa immediately spreads out on the couch, leaning her head on her hand, kicking her boots over the armrest. He brings out two sodas from the mini-fridge and hands one over, grateful as always to have something to do with his hands. She asks about his life here and he tells her: photographing models and selling the pictures to magazines. He gets hired by some fashion brands every now and then, not that he needs the money, but he’s making a name for himself in a way that feels like he’s contributing to the world instead of just living in it.

“You got it all worked out,” she says, looking at him appreciatively. “I’m proud of you, kid. You also got a great skincare regimen that I need to know.”

He laughs. “Try being experimented on by nazis.”

“Eh, I’ll pass.”

“What about you? How’s Lauren?”

She holds up her soda. “Got anything stronger?”

“Not in the office, unfortunately.”

She shrugs and sighs. “Lauren’s not doing too well. She got into an accident a few years ago, hasn’t been the same since. I tried taking care of her, but—you know. Old age. Or maybe you don’t know.” She cocks a grin at him, but it’s an obvious cover for the sadness underneath.

“Were you taking care of her yourself?”

“We had a nurse, and Lauren’s sister lives in Shelbyville now. But we decided it’s better for Lauren to go into a home.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

She scrunches up her nose. “It’s Lauren going through that, not me.”

“We go through what our loves go through. When they hurt we hurt. And when they die, a little of us dies with them.”

She wipes her nose on the back of her hand and Bucky hands her a tissue from the box on his desk. “When did you get so fuckin’ wise, huh, you bastard?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

She reaches over to grab his hand, and he puts his soda down to take it. “But I do. Tell me everything.”

So he does. He lays it all out, the ugly truth of his world, for someone to help bear his burden. And Theresa listens, laughing at the right places and crying with him in others. It’s a release he hasn’t felt in a while, years, not since he had that chat with Becca. It comes out in other ways, though: placing pomegranates around his sets, and carving initials into trees in Prospect Park for generations later to find. His happiness has fluctuated with the passing years, but he finds that he is truly, almost completely, happy with his lot in life.

* * *

_I wish I could give you the gift of forever, and be with you in that forever. It’s selfish of me to want that, knowing you have your own life, but I don’t want nothing from you. I don’t want a damn thing, I just want to be by your side_

* * *

The truth of it is this: Bucky loves Steve, and Steve is dead. Every day Bucky wakes up, and Steve is still dead. Steve is half of Bucky’s heart, and it was ripped from him the moment he heard the broadcast.

He looks into the mirror and tries to see what Steve saw in him. He whispers Steve’s name into the waiting darkness of his apartment at 3am, but nothing happens. Even the way he says Steve’s name is wrong, because Steve isn’t there to hear it. Steve’s name is the growl in the back of his throat he doesn’t say, when he can’t think of anything else to say. Even pushing it down into the depths of his own heart, where he thought it couldn’t hurt him, only made his love stronger. Even loving Vladimir didn’t diminish Bucky’s love for Steve, but now both of them are gone and Bucky has no one to pour his love into. He doesn’t even have bodies to bury.

Steve is more eloquent on paper than he is in real life. Bucky wouldn’t think this was the same Steve he knew if it wasn’t for the slope of his words that he committed to memory, if it wasn’t for the letters; he knows how poetic Steve could be. But this—this goes beyond anything Bucky knows of. This is a whole side to Steve that he kept hidden, much like Bucky did from him. They are both queer, it seems, but their love, the love they denied themselves and each other, didn’t match up at the right time. And now Steve isn’t here for Bucky to love when Bucky needs him most. 

Sometimes he thinks he’s happy, and then he’ll remember the sour onion smell of Steve’s sweat as they lay together during the hot summer nights. He has reasons to live now, even if they are as superficial as searching for that one perfect photo to take, but the ache in the center of him grows bigger every day. And the days, in their unspeakably cruel way, keep coming.

* * *

The bodies drop like pinecones out here and sometimes the nights are so silent I swear I’ve got my bad ear back. I lie awake at night imagining you here with me, you whole and me less damaged from the war, from you leaving me, and I imagine your arms around me again like we used to sleep when we were younger, probably not young enough to call ourselves innocent. God, I ached for you then. Every night we slept in the same bed I wanted to touch you, I wanted to taste the sounds you make—and I’m sorry for that. Sorry for being selfish, sorry for being pissy and jealous of all the dames who hung off your arm, sorry for taking up the time you could have been spending getting your life on track if you didn’t have someone like me dragging you down. Well, now the world thinks I’m some big hero, but I’d trade all the medals and accolades and comic books about me just to see you again, smiling down at me like you used to with that cocky smirk. They can lock me up, I don’t care, just as long as I get to see that smile. I can break out anyhow. I’m Captain America, after all.

* * *

The job he’s made for himself affords him certain luxuries like rubbing shoulders with the New York elite. He makes friends who aren’t war buddies or Appalachian goddesses and speaks at a few events, all under the name of James Barnes. People ask if he’s related to the famed Bucky Barnes, and he shakes his head and says, “I don’t even know who that is,” to mixed reactions of disgust and a 10-minute monologue about the queer icons Steve Rogers and his best friend Bucky. 

“Whoever he is, he must be pretty special,” his model Hunter says, tearing a pomegranate in half.

“Maybe he died in the war.” Bucky fixes the focus and snaps a photo. 

Hunter bunches the tulle around his waist with one hand, baring his thighs, and drips pomegranate juice on his chest with the other. “The letters say Steve wanted to come home from the war to get back to him. Everyone dreams of having a love like that, don’t they?”

“I guess so.” Bucky snaps a few more photos. He brings his tripod closer to get better angles. “You haven’t had a grand, sweeping romance for the ages?”

Hunter laughs. He’s only 24, so Bucky guesses not. “I lost my best friend when we were in my senior year of high school. Just kids, really. But we did everything together, our first kiss, our first time having sex. We were really in love. I guess it’s not the love you’re ever going to read about in a magazine.”

“You never know,” Bucky says, snapping another shot as Hunter sprawls on his back with one knee crossed over the other. “You could become super famous and give lots of interviews about how you loved your friend. I think it’s what Cap would do, if he had the chance.”

Hunter laughs. “Yeah. Maybe. Maybe he’d like that.” He changes position, lying on his side with his head on his hand, a mirror of Theresa the week before. 

“What’s his name?”

“Max. Maximillion.”

Bucky smiles and takes another shot.

* * *

_Your love inside me isn’t enough; it’s your blood I want, too._

* * *

(1981)

The call comes in the middle of the night, but Bucky doesn’t hear the voicemail until the next day, after he’s already visited the crime scene.

Howard’s voice was slurred, and he talked slower than usual. “We fucked up—I fucked up, I—shit, it’s really happening. Always knew this day would come, but it’s here. Damnit, Barnes, I could’ve really used you around these past few years. I know they’re coming for me. It’s just around the corner for me, so consider this a farewell. You’re a helluva shot, you fucking prick, but I don’t think even you could save me from this. Funny that we didn’t see this coming. Seems a bit poetic, after all, to be killed by the thing we fought so hard to wipe out. This is it for me, pal.”

Maria lies motionless in the bed, one gunshot wound to the head. Howard is lying on the floor with his arm outstretched towards her. His brains are blown out across the floor and onto part of the bed. 

“Where’s Tony?” is the first thing Bucky says to Carter. She’s waiting in the kitchen, biting her fingernail—another gesture he hasn’t seen from her before. Maybe she’s just as human as the rest of them. 

“At Maria’s brother’s, thank God.”

The police are making a mockery of the scene, but they won’t find anything that SHIELD can’t determine first. Bucky knows this has something to do with Hydra, but he can’t find it in himself to care—he’s out of the game now, and he likes it that way. 

“There’s nothing I can do,” he says.

Carter nods and straightens up. “I don’t expect you to do anything. You’re fine to go home.”

Bucky turns to go before he pauses. “If they got Howard, they’ll be coming after you, too.”

Carter holds her head up, her eyes ablaze. “I’d like to see them try.”

* * *

_The only thing keeping me alive out here is the thought of seeing you again. That and Morita’s needle skills._

* * *

Howard’s funeral is a stately affair that bars no expense, as is fitting of the man who wanted the SHIELD logo on the spacesuits of the men he put on the moon. Tony keeps his head up and doesn’t cry. Whatever Howard did to him already shows at 12 years old, and Bucky feels the immeasurable loss, not of his father, but of Tony’s childhood. 

He stays seated after the service long enough that he draws the attention of the one person he doesn’t want to speak to. He understands now why he couldn’t stand her all these years: because he saw the way Steve looked at her, and it ground his heart into dust. He used to be the only person Steve looked at. Then Peggy came along, with her painted lips and lightly curled hair, looking the picture of wife material, and she took up even a moment of Steve’s time that he wasn’t spending on Bucky. It stung. Steve is dead, he confessed his love ten times over, and it still stings.

Carter is crying openly, wiping her tears with a handkerchief. “I lied to you,” she says, voice shaking. “A lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless.”

Bucky clears his throat. He stopped crying a while ago. “What.”

“When Steve—when Steve was in the plane, flying over the Atlantic, he said—he said to me, ‘Tell Buck I love him, and I always have. I always will. Tell him for me.’ And I didn’t. I kept it to myself. Now Howard is dead and it’s just the two of us left.”

Bucky feels an unspeakable calm stop his heart like a broken watch. For a moment he can’t breathe, and he thinks he might be having another panic attack except for how his mind isn’t whirring and he can think clearly. For what feels like the first time in his life, he can think clearly.

He’s not proud of what he says, but he can’t help himself. “Steve had to die for you to become a hero,” he spits. “You’re nothing without him.”

Carter doesn’t say anything or even look at him. He pushes past her on the way out, without looking back. He’s finally done.

* * *

_You are the other half of me. My heart beats for both of us, and it’s strong now, it beats harder, slower, more regular. You should hear it. I know you’d try. You put your head on my chest when you thought I was asleep, pressing your nimble fingers to my pulse. Sometimes that was the only way I knew I was real, because you were there to prove I was. You gave me life. Do you know that? You gave me life. And everything I’ve done with that life, I owe to you. Loving goes two ways: the lover and the person loved. And I love you enough for the whole world. It doesn’t matter to me if they forget me, if I forget them, as long as I can remember you, and the sounds you made in the night while you were sleeping, and the stench of your morning coffee breath, and the way your fingers felt against my wrist, and the tremble in your voice when you thought I was too unconscious to hear you call my name. I heard my name in your voice and it woke me up, again and again. I heard my name in your voice and it kept me breathing._

_For the first two of the five days it took to march across the land, you were sweating out a fever while I marched front and center, popping my head into the tank every hour to make sure you were okay. You couldn’t see it, your eyes shut so tight against the light when the hatch opened, but I practically glowed every time I found you still breathing. It would keep me going for the next hour until the worry crept in again and I had to check. Every time I saw you, it was like being born anew, like a gift from God himself. I don’t know if I even believe in God, but I thanked my lucky stars that you were still alive after what they’d done to you. I could barely breathe between the anger and the relief I felt just touching your face. I wanted to set the world on fire. I wanted to burn every motherfucker who ever came near you, and I knew that kind of anger would eat me up, and that if you died I would make sure they paid for it, and then I’d follow you into the next life. There’s no me without you, do you get that? You were the beginning of me, and you’ll be the end of me too. There is no end of the line for me. I’ll follow you wherever you go._


	6. 1981

Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, lived a hard life. Born in 1918 to a single mother in a rough, but extremely gay, neighborhood of Brooklyn, he not only endured the Great Depression but also various illnesses that would leave him bedridden for weeks or months. As a consequence, he never finished high school, too sick at times to go to his classes let alone pass them. Despite that, he was the kind of intelligent you don’t encounter very often. His tactical maneuvers throughout World War II saw a great number of victories for the allied forces. His most famous mission, of course, was the rescue of 400 men from Krausberg behind enemy lines, which also happened to be his first mission. Not only did he rescue these men, but he also rescued his best friend, one Bucky Barnes, to whom he later addressed his famous letters. Some say that the entire reason for him invading the Krausberg facility was for Barnes, and this author certainly hopes that kind of enduring love story that could launch a thousand films and mini-series was enough to propel a man to glorious action. If you can’t fight a facility full of technologically advanced nazi soldiers for the man you love, then what good is your supersoldier strength to begin with?

As Rogers’s later letters were never sent to Barnes during the war, we have no record of Barnes’s response or even knowledge that he survived long enough to read them. No one knows much of the man Rogers addressed his letters to, as none of Rogers’s closest soldiers, the 107th Tactical Team, have come forward with any stories of him, either of their own or secondhand from Rogers. On one hand, this is heartening: the loyalty that Rogers’s soldiers continue to show to him proves how good of a man he really was and how deserving he is of his legacy. On the other, as a historian, it pains me to know so little about such a prominent figure in history. However, we do have records of Barnes’s interactions with Rogers during the war. Their correspondence spanned almost two and a half years from Barnes enlisting in the Army in December 1942 to when Rogers tragically died in action in March 1945, and we can read in these former letters that they care deeply for one another. 

But it appears that either Rogers’s love was never reciprocated, or at least not explicitly. Back in those days, it would have been difficult to get forward expressions of romantic or sexual affection through the censors, especially without getting blue carded or interned in a psychiatric hospital. In World War II, thousands of men and women in Germany were being sent to the gas chambers to die purely because of their sexual or romantic orientation, and the persecution of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals continues in many parts of the world to this day, including in our very own United States of America. The hypocrisy of this continues to astound. Why fight for the freedom of some people but not all? Rogers himself, dubbed the greatest soldier in history, at least since Achilles, was gay. There have been a great many historical figures who have shaped history who were gay, and for anyone to salute the American flag and then disparage these people in the next sentence is the height of hypocrisy considering what Steve Rogers died for. 

Without getting on my high horse about it, I have one thing to say: Steve Rogers loved this man in a way that will endure throughout the rest of American history, and in a way that has already shaped American history. You only have to look outside during a pride march to see dozens of signs emblazoned with the face of Captain America to understand that America itself has a gay history, and it will not be silenced. 

—Alinda Turner, “Steve Rogers was Gay: Get Over It”, _HX Magazine_ , 1976.

* * *

The plague sweeps across the world in a matter of years, killing tens of thousands and infecting more by the time 1985 ends. Bucky watches his friends waste away to nothing, their bodies infected with sores, losing their lives to the debilitating disease. It’s like watching Steve get sick, except it happens, again, and again, and again. He hasn’t had so much as a cold since he was 26. He goes to more funerals than he can count. He attends meetings, conferences, sit-ins, protests, zine launches, any place his voice is needed. He takes photos, and sometimes he speaks, but mostly he listens and tries to absorb as much information as he can in the hopes that learning something will save at least one person. But it never does.

* * *

After all these years, the person who revealed the love letters of Captain America has come forward. Susanne Parrish, an unassuming housewife, is not the face of the anti-gay movement as some have dubbed her. She’s not a tyrannical, queer-hating monster who wanted to see the world turn against Steve Rogers. She sits in capris and a floral shirt on her front porch in Shelbyville, Indiana, where Bucky Barnes once sat to write the letters that have been splashed across the front page of every news outlet in the last eight years. She seems, if anything, contrite.

“I don’t know much about the man. Of course, I’ve read the letters myself, and I still have the originals, kept secret and safe. Not in the house, let me tell you, in case anyone tries to rob me. There are photos of Steve along with hand-drawn portraits of Bucky, and he is quite a looker. It’s no wonder Steve fell in love with him, a handsome guy like that.”

She leads me around the garden beds in her backyard, pointing out various vegetables and that she’s grown herself. “Once we moved into the house, we couldn’t bear to get rid of them. And once we learned of Bucky being a vegetarian, and how much he loved to tend to the garden with his sister Becca, we knew we had to keep them going. I’ve now got a green thumb because of him. Just one of the ways he’s changed my life.”

Steve’s friendship with Bucky Barnes has persisted in the minds of the public long after Steve died in the war. When Susanne released his letters in 1976, she knew the kinds of attention they would receive, not only from detractors but also from members of the gay community who felt a kinship with Steve Rogers, and who were more than happy to elevate him to an icon for their people. 

She didn’t know the backlash she would receive personally. A recent poll by _The Advocate_ showed that the majority of pollers had a negative opinion of Mrs Parrish, for what they deemed “outing” this great hero against his wishes. “If he’d wanted them to be seen,” said one anonymous poller, “he’d have released them himself. The only person who should’ve seen these letters is the man they were addressed to.”

Bucky Barnes has certainly grown to mythic status in the minds of many people around the world. While little is known about the man himself—nothing aside from what the letters tell us—like Steve, he has become an icon in the gay community. Yet no one, aside from Susanne and the people who won’t disclose his Army records, knows what he looks like. 

“I didn’t want to ruin his life by showing his picture, and we couldn’t find anyone who went by the legal name of Bucky Barnes,” she says, as we sit down for a cup of coffee. “Steve was already dead, but I felt it would have been terrible to bring that on a man who had no idea.”

I ask the question I’ve been dying to since she first rang me for this interview. “What did you want to get out of publishing these letters?”

“I wanted the world to see the love story I saw. I was in bits when I read them, and my friends agreed—we were silly, I must admit—that we should publish them. I didn’t even tell my husband, I just called the New York Times and faxed copies of them over. Learned how to use a fax machine to do it. My husband is better at that kind of stuff than me, but I didn’t want to bring him into it.”

I stir my spoon around in my coffee cup, a grey and white fine china, and contemplate the next question. “Why are you revealing yourself now, after all this time?”

Susanne sighs. There is a hint of tears in her eyes as she answers. “I want to give the originals to him, to Bucky Barnes. But there’s no telling whether he’s even still alive. I want to say I’m sorry for what I did. It wasn’t my place to do it. I don’t expect his forgiveness, but he should have the letters. At least I can give him that.”

—Rynn Visk, “Not a Monster, Just a Woman”, _The Advocate_ , 1984.

* * *

Steve’s face stares at him a dozen times over as he watches the parade, picket signs and banners with his words scrawled across them, lines like “your love inside me isn’t enough” and “I wanted to set the world on fire.” He snaps as many photos as he can, some to submit to magazines but most to keep for himself. The smiling faces of everyone in the crowd make the world seem a little less lonely, a little less fearful. He’s ready to let the world see who he is. Finally, he’s ready to be perceived.

* * *

Ron Fisher’s The Temple, a fictional account of Captain America’s life during the Second World War, is one of the most daring pieces of cinema ever committed to the screen. While it loosely follows the events of the Captain’s life, it takes a major turn from fact and veers straight into _gay love story for the ages_. The one defining element of this film that no one before dared commit to is the reimagining of Bucky Barnes, yes, that Bucky Barnes, as one of the Howling Commandos who served with Steve during the war. 

We all know the story: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’s best friend, grew up with him in Depression-era Brooklyn, only to be drafted into the war that Steve was so desperate to fight in. In real life, Bucky was sent home from the war due to an injury, but in Fisher’s retelling, Barnes continues to fight in the war by his captain’s side. The film doesn’t depict the beginning of Steve’s story, as most other films do. Instead, it cuts right to the rescue mission as the “point of no return” that leads them into Act II of the film. As you can tell, the rest of the story is fiction, and there were a number of ways Fisher wanted the story to go.

“What we decided on,” he tells _The Hollywood Reporter_ , “is for the end to be tragic no matter which way you look at it. Since we don’t know what happened to Barnes, but we do know what happened to Rogers, and that’s a tragedy in itself. In real life, these men never got to express their love for each other. So what would happen if we dialed the tragedy up to 11?”

Fisher has been accused of perpetuating harmful stereotypes in his film, by both depicting Barnes as a waifish, limp-wristed camp (and I mean that in both senses of the word) mascot and ending the story with both of them dying, a trope that has continued since the introduction of the Hays Code in the mid-1930s. 

Aside from this, it’s thanks to the script, which has been nominated for an Academy Award, that the film has been elevated from what could have been a hackneyed sojourn through nazi-occupied Europe where Captain America punches a lot of people, as many thought this film would be, into a stunning expose on the life of two queer men at a time when any expression of love for each other was illegal. 

Fisher didn’t write the script, which is odd for an auteur of his caliber. Instead, the honor fell to Madeline Carr, a University of Colombia graduate with a Masters in History and Literature, whose first film _Pomegranate Street_ won Best First Time Filmmaker Short at the Cannes Film Festival two years ago. Reports from the set say that Fisher and Carr fought over creative control of the project, but you wouldn’t know it from watching the finished film. 

It is, in one word, exquisite. From the cinematography to the acting to the score to the editing, this film is a work of art. But above all, the story is one of heart-wrenching devotion, in which Rogers and Barnes prove their love for each other time after time. Every now and then, it flashes back to their lives when they were children and young adults living in Brooklyn, but the majority of the action is centered on what happens between them in the war. 

And yes, there is that one scene. In a moonlit room above a tavern, Bucky and Steve share a wondrous night of passion between the sheets, reminiscent of _Thelma and Louise_ in which Geena Davis and a young Brad Pitt ravish each other. (No doubt Fisher and Carr were taking notes.) The defining factor of the film is that it is one of the only mainstream Hollywood movies that treats a gay sex scene like this with such sincerity and respect. 

Fisher has also been under fire from disability advocates for what they call “erasing disability”. We know from the letters that Rogers and Barnes exchanged that Bucky lost an arm in the Krausberg facility, but in Fisher’s film, he is seen sporting two. 

“Yeah, I didn’t really think about that,” Fisher discloses, waving a hand flippantly. “What are they gonna do, anyway? Truthfully, I don’t really care if they feel ‘represented’ or not. I wanted to tell my story, my way.”

It was at this point in the interview that his manager interrupted us to tell us that Fisher had an urgent meeting. Fisher seemed reluctant to go and shook my hand enthusiastically as we said goodbye, telling me to call his people to set up another interview. When I glanced at his manager, I knew that wouldn’t be possible. I’d already drawn back the curtain enough, but I’m sure Fisher has a few more golden nuggets to spill.

—Dirk Sanders, “Fisher’s The Temple is the bravest film you’ll ever watch”, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , 1995.

* * *

The only good thing Ronald Reagan ever did was making MLK Jr’s birthday a nationwide holiday, but it doesn’t mean shit when millions of Black and queer people are dying and he’s doing nothing. Bucky is sorry—sorry to Gabe, to Morita, to Steve—that he missed the most powerful movement in his country’s history while he was killing himself in Russia. There’s no making up for that. So he attends rallies when he can and donates when he can’t, and he spends time with his friends, who are always happy to see him, no matter what trouble he’s getting himself into now.

* * *

_WHOISBUCKYBARNES.net_

I’VE FOUND HIM. BUCKY BARNES. I SHIT YOU NOT, I KNOW WHO HE IS. You know that photographer James Barnes? Okay most people don’t but he’s HUGE in the underground gay scene of New York. Have you seen that picture of Sarah Saunders where she’s wearing that black dress and a garland of roses? Well guess what’s in the background. FUCKING POMEGRANATES. SEE?

His name is literally JAMES BARNES. Okay I know what you’re going to say: he could have taken his name from Bucky and changed it so it wasn’t completely recognisable, a homage yada yada, but if anyone knows him, and I met him last week so I know this for certain, HE IS MISSING AN ARM. HIS LEFT ARM. IT’S GONE. 

Also, HE’S A PHOTOGRAPHER. So like four people are going to read this but it HAS TO BE him. I swear on my mother’s life, and you know how much I love my mother. 

Kisses forever, Grazia

 _12 April, 1993_  
user: punkassbitch813  
okay i looked up pictures of this guy and he’slike 30 at most. how are you supposed to explain that? grazia your theories are getting even more wild every day girlfriend

 _12 April, 1993_  
user: grazia  
Ummmmm haven’t you heard of the Super Soldier serum??? Bucky was experimented on rigth??? So what if he had the serum too???? And it made him super youthful and good lookign

 _12 April, 1993_  
user: punkassbitch813  
pull the other one graz

* * *

He tries New Coke, and it’s disgusting. He tries cocaine, and it’s worse. He plays the NES and gets hooked on Excitebike. It’s an interesting day.

* * *

Captain America and Sergeant Barnes have long been the study of many artists throughout the decades since Captain Rogers’s letters came to light in 1976. They have seemed the perfect muse for LGBT artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring, and David Hockney, and now another gay artist has memorialized them. 

Sasha Valor, a 37-year-old bisexual woman from Des Moines, Iowa has unveiled a new art project. Known for her provocative re-imaginings of famous sculptures, she has taken a demure turn with her new subjects. Her previous artwork _Introvenus De Milo_ , a take on Alexandros of Antioch’s Venus De Milo, was created to highlight the country’s growing epidemic of methamphetamine addiction. Her newest sculpture _Silence In The Sunset_ pays homage to the wartime hero Steve Rogers and the man he wrote his famous letters to, Bucky Barnes, by positing them as embracing lovers.

The two are lying down, entwined in bedsheets, naked from the waist up. In a twist of subversion, it’s Rogers’s chin resting on Barnes’s chest as he gazes up at the other man. The love is evident in his eyes, but for Barnes, it is not. In a callback to the Hellenistic artwork _Nike of Samothrace_ , Barnes’s head is missing, seeming to be sliced off at the neck. 

Valor quotes this choice as saying, “We have no idea what he looks like. He could be anyone. That’s the beauty of Nike, of the letters. Any one of us could have love as effervescent as that of Steve and Bucky. And I wanted to show that no matter what happened to Bucky—losing an arm, getting sent home from the war, outliving Steve—that Steve would always love him, the way he professes to in the letters. Some people like to claim that what they had was only friendship, that friendship was more intense back then, even though Bucky’s biography clearly goes into detail about what he felt. This is my way of making that romantic and sexual love clear. It was friendship too, but it was something else as well.”

When asked why she depicted Steve after the serum, she says, “I wanted to give them the happy ending they never got. It’s the height of tragedy that they never lived long enough to see attitudes change. Even though we’re not technically married in the eyes of the law, my wife and I deserve everything a husband and wife can have, and the same goes for Bucky and Steve. They lived in a time of corporal punishment and institutions. Gay conversion therapy is happening still. Queer people are still being bashed in the streets. There is an unprecedented level of homelessness for queer youth in this country that doesn’t exist in other western nations. The least I could do is build a f****** shrine to history’s gayest soldier. Hopefully, this changes even one person’s mind about how we should be treated.”

 _Silence In The Sunset_ was unveiled in Washington Square Park yesterday to a crowd of over 3,000 people, some of whom were carrying signs with Captain America’s face. Others were handing out copies of the letters as they appeared in Barnes’s biography _What I Owe To Him_ , which chronicles his and Steve’s life pre-World War II and was published in 1989. As of yet, no one has seen the man’s face, but we know one thing for certain: while they couldn’t get married then, and as far as America sees it they can’t get married now, but they will be together until time forgets them. 

—Randall Singh, “Sasha Valor’s new artwork memorializes Captain America love story”, _New York Magazine_ , 2009.

* * *

The house looks different after being renovated, more modern and less ramshackle, and yet the garden beds are still placed in exactly the same positions they were 40 years ago. Susanne sits on the porch in a dress that’s fit for Sunday mass. Bucky’s chair sits beside her, rocking gently in the breeze. He can smell the pot of tea beside her before he reaches the stairs. 

“Mrs Parrish,” he says, with a smile. 

There are tears in her eyes when she stands to hug him. He puts his arm around her, hugging her back, feeling her shoulders shake, and he thinks she’s crying before she pulls back to reveal that it’s from laughter.

“I can’t believe it,” she says, touching his face gently with her wrinkled hands. “After all this time, you still look the same.”

Bucky’s smile becomes tight. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

She smiles up at him, the picture of faded beauty. “Come and sit with me, would you?”

Bucky slips into his rocking chair, feeling the unforgiving wood as familiarly as an old sweater. 

“First things first.” She picks up a folder from the table and hands it over. 

Bucky’s hand shakes as he puts it in his lap and turns the front cover. The first two dozen sleeves are full of the letters that he and Steve exchanged during their time apart—first the nine months of Bucky’s training at Camp McCoy, when he was sent overseas, and after he came home. 

Steve’s beautiful script jumps from the page, transporting Bucky back to 1944, sitting on this very porch and reading them. He wipes the tears away as they pitter-patter on the protective plastic. He’s afraid to touch the letters, afraid that if he does he’ll ruin them somehow, even though they were meant for him. He feels the enormity of them, and of Steve’s love for him, in the slope of the vowels and consonants that spell Bucky’s name, the climactic _Always, Steve_ at the end of each one. Steve wrote these, and they and his drawings are all that’s left of him in the world. 

“Thank you,” Bucky says, his voice thick. “Thank you, Susanne.”

“Oh, honey, it’s the least I could do. We couldn’t get in touch with your sister.” She has a lot to say, and she needs to say it, Bucky can tell. “And the truth is—the truth is, I didn’t want to. I wanted to keep them for myself, and to show the world this extraordinary discovery. I see now how selfish it was to keep them from you. To bare your relationship when you didn’t want anyone to see these letters.”

“Truthfully, until you published them, I didn’t know a second lot of letters existed.”

Susanne nods. “When you called me, that’s what I figured. I was so surprised that you were still alive. Of course, there have been conspiracy theories—that you had died before you read them. That was the big one.”

Bucky chuckles. “Unfortunately not.”

Susanne reaches out to put her hand over his and squeeze. It’s strange to be comforted by someone who changed his life so dramatically, for better and for worse. He’s sure that he would have read the letters eventually, after moving back to New York and starting his life over, but he kept putting it off. Maybe this was what he needed—a kick in the ass to make him sort his life out.

“Will you tell me about him?” she asks, her voice plaintive but reassuring. Even after all this time, Bucky needs to feel like Steve is someone real and not just a fantasy he made up in his head. The world has twisted their story in myriad ways to the point where Bucky’s not sure what’s real and what’s not. But Susanne wants to know, and that simple act of asking brings forth memories Bucky had buried for years.

“He was the love of my life. Even when I was with someone else, my partner Vlad in the ‘60s, I never really moved on. It’s not a question of who I love more, but Steve was my first love. No one knew Vlad, but the world keeps reminding me of Steve, like picking at a healing wound. It’s painful how I never got to tell him. You must know from my letters that I loved him too, right? You have to know that.”

Susanne nods. “It was obvious. The way you wrote to him—it was clear you felt the same way, though neither of you could express it in your letters.”

Bucky scrubs a hand over his jaw. He’s got stubble from not shaving for the past few days, and he’s kept his hair long for the last eight years since he left SHIELD. He looks like a hippie now. Steve was always the lawless one, but Bucky’s been embracing his rebellious side. His arm gives a painful throb, but he likes it—he likes the reminder that he’s alive. He likes the punishing workouts he subjects himself to. He likes cranking the heating up in his office on days when he doesn’t have anything scheduled until he sweats through his clothes. 

“We met when we were kids, as you know. Steve was a month shy of turning 11, but he was already a little hell-raiser. I found him in Prospect Park, coughing up blood from being kicked so hard by the neighborhood assholes. I picked him up, took him home, and got to listening to his impassioned speech about standing up for the right thing. He hooked me from day one. I could tell he wasn’t messing around, that he believed every word he said and he was willing to bleed for it. 

“But I didn’t know how hard it was going to be to love him, to fear for him every time he had a coughing fit and every time he came home sporting a shiner. I was deathly afraid he was going to get killed saying the wrong thing—or the right thing, depending on how you look at it. I was afraid he was going to get caught with a guy at the wrong time and someone would make him suffer for it.

“But I loved him. God, I loved him so much. I still do. It tears me up sometimes thinking about all the chances I had to tell him and didn’t. It tears me up thinking about how he felt the same and we could’ve had what we had and more.” He’s crying now, fat tears spilling down his face until they collect in his shirt. 

Susanne squeezes his hand again and shushes him quietly. “It’s okay, Bucky, honey. It’s okay.”

And the funny thing is, after years of people telling him that, he finally believes it.

* * *

# A DREAM TOO FAR

Dir. Lynda Sawyer

1992

1\. EXT. BROOKLYN—DAY

Shots of Brooklyn in 1938. The river. The buildings. The people—queer, Black, Latino, and Jewish people wandering the streets. All of it is bathed in a golden glow as the sun sets.

2\. INT. HOUSE—DAY  
BUCKY, a rakish 21-year-old with dark hair and soft lips, is lying on the sofa in their one-bedroom apartment, fanning himself with a comic book. The front door opens and STEVE, a skinny, pale 20-year-old, walks in, hesitantly. He has a black eye and a split lip.

STEVE:

Buck? Don’t be mad, okay?

BUCKY:

What in the darned hell have you done now?

Steve walks further into the apartment and Bucky springs up from the sofa to get to him.

BUCKY:

Again, Steve? I oughtta teach you a lesson about

getting in fights all the time, but apparently you never learn.

STEVE:

Yeah, yeah, I’m a thickhead, don’t need to tell me twice.

BUCKY:

Apparently I do, don’t I? Come here.

Bucky leads Steve to the kitchen counter where Steve hops up. Bucky takes out a cookie tin with first aid supplies. He applies a liquid to Steve’s cut lip, and Steve winces.

BUCKY:

Oh, so now you understand pain?

STEVE:

Get on with it, jerk.

Bucky delicately wipes the blood off Steve’s face. He has moved close to Steve and stands in between Steve’s parted knees. His brow furrows the longer he cleans, while Steve looks down at him in something resembling awe. He’s not used to being the taller one, and he’s just now realizing the depths of their friendship.

Steve swallows.

STEVE:

Do you…

BUCKY:

Do I what?

STEVE:

Nothing.

BUCKY:

Spit it out.

STEVE:

Do you want to get a drink tonight?

Bucky leans back to look at him.

BUCKY:

Why are you asking me that?

STEVE:

Do I have to have a reason to want to 

have a drink with my best friend?

BUCKY:

Unless aliens have sucked out your brain

then yeah, you pretty much always do.

Bucky realizes how close they are and steps back.

BUCKY:

Hold out your knuckles.

Steve does, and Bucky gently takes one hand to wipe it clean of blood.

STEVE:

I got a few good licks in.

Bucky snorts in laughter.

BUCKY:

I bet you did.

Bucky looks up at him, his mouth parted, his eyes glossing over.

BUCKY:

I, um. I actually have to go out tonight.

Steve’s shoulders slump just the tiniest bit.

STEVE:

Okay.

BUCKY:

I need to leave now, actually. Are you fine

get yourself cleaned up?

Steve frowns. Looks away. Nods.

STEVE:

Sure, Buck.

BUCKY:

Don’t wait up for me, okay?

Steve nods again and drops off the counter. Bucky tosses the rag down on the bench and grabs his coat, disappearing out of the door in seconds. Steve breathes raggedly for a few seconds before stomping off to his bed.

3\. EXT. HOUSE—DAY

Bucky leans against the door of their apartment, breathing heavily. He blinks away tears.

* * *

Vlad would have loved _Phantom of the Opera_. Bucky falls asleep in the first act.

* * *

In Sergeant Bucky Barnes’s highly acclaimed biography, the biographer posits the question, “What happens to our love when we are dead and gone and forgotten? When there is no one left to remember that love?” It’s a heartbreaking thing to ponder, as I’m sure some of us have over the years since this book was released. We all believe that the love we have in our lives is as unique as we are, as special, as commemorable, but according to _What I Owe To Him_ , Bucky Barnes seemed to think that the love that he shared with Steve Rogers is as memorable, and forgettable, as any other. 

However, we as scholars, readers, historians, and laypeople realize that Captain America and Sergeant Barnes will endure well past their deaths and even the deaths of anyone alive today. Many have made comparisons to Patroclus and Achilles, two soldiers whose love defied an entire army, as Rogers and Barnes’s did too. Steve’s first mission was carried out against orders, and he ended up saving his best friend from childhood. Many say that Barnes was his reason for the rescue mission in the first place and that the 400 or so men he saved were only a consequence. 

Barnes’s biography does not detail his time in the war. Instead, it focuses on his time with Steve pre-enlistment, from when they met in 1929 to Barnes receiving his draft letter in 1942. It is a haunting tale of love and loyalty that memorializes their lives in a time when no one (except the neighborhood bullies) knew who they were. As Barnes has never come forward all these years, many assumed him to be dead, some theorizing that he committed suicide after Steve’s death. At long last, over 40 years after the end of World War II, Barnes reappeared in society with the publishing of his biography. 

But the mystery of the man does not end there. While his letters profess a man capable of poetic expression, he did not write the book himself, instead choosing a ghostwriter to pen the pages of his life. He seemingly bares all in this chronicle of piety, but he stops just when we are desperate to know more. He has yet to reveal himself in public, and none of the drawings he talks about in the book were included. It’s possible that they don’t exist anymore, destroyed, or forgotten. 

He does include pages from his diaries, which he kept up throughout his later teenage years, and which spin a tale of yearning so profound it’s hard to imagine how he didn’t act on it. He professes to realizing he was in love with the object of his affections from 16 years old, when Rogers fell ill with rheumatic fever and had to be hospitalized, which happened more than once. He writes of climbing into Rogers’s hospital bed to hold him and singing softly to ease him through his pain. 

“If Steve had to die, and it seemed likely at that moment,” the book reads, “then Bucky would go with him. Steve wasn’t the only one with a death wish when it came to the man he loved.” 

Barnes includes copies of their letters from when he shipped off to basic training to Steve’s death. Even though they have been included in every major news outlet at one time or another, particularly when they were first released by Susanne Parrish, it’s refreshing to see that Barnes himself has given them to the world to devour. For those of us who staved off reading them, some from loyalty to Steve, some with the reasoning that the letters were never meant for public consumption, we were finally able to read them with Barnes’s blessing. 

Many people have tried to guess Barnes’s identity over the years, some claiming they know him, some claiming they are related to him, some claiming to be him. In the early 90s, one internet user behind the website WHOISBUCKYBARNES.net claimed that the photographer James Barnes was the very same Bucky who went to war in 1943. Of the few people who read the site, many disagreed. How could someone who was born in 1917 be the very same youthful and modest photographer living in New York in 1992? This author is inclined to agree with them. 

Whoever Bucky Barnes is, he remains a mystery to us, and only time will tell if he ever resurfaces.

—Elliot Hefner, _A Love For Time Itself_ , Macmillan, 2002.

* * *

George _Fucking_ Bush gets elected in a shitshow of a year. America continues to do its American thing, killing people and letting them die in equal measure. Bucky is disgusted. Is this what Steve fought for? Is this freedom? When people are dying en masse? When soldiers missing limbs beg on the street?

Bucky is slowly losing his faith in humanity, in the good of the people. Steve died, Steve fucking _died_ and all they can do is hold placards and vigils and hope things change. 

Steve downed that fucking plane because he thought Bucky would want him to save a million people even if it meant him dying, whereas Bucky would rather Steve kill a million innocent people than die, and that’s the truth Bucky has to live with. He has to live with that, and himself, and the world. He has to live with his lies of omission and his guilt and the fucking letters that Steve never should’ve written because at least that way Bucky wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge that Steve wanted him, too.

* * *

GAYSTRAVAGANZA  
BOY BAR  
THIS SATURDAY  
SPECIAL GUEST BOOKIE BORNES

Come on down to Boy Bar this Saturday for a lively night of drinks and fun with drag kings and queens from all over. The legendary Bookie Bornes, New York’s very own drag superstar, will be performing with his troupe of lovely vixens and vix-men. Get in quick to grab your tix.

* * *

The ‘90s start with a bang and only go up from there. The economy booms. Freedom prevails. Lesbian chic takes over. Technological advances skyrocket. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” spits in the face of everything queer people are serving for. Bucky starts drinking coffee from Starbucks. It’s a new era.

* * *

Steve was always coming home with bruised eyes and split knuckles as if he collected them like a watchmaker collects cogs. Just when his newest shiner would heal, he’d go out and get another, spurred on by the homophobic, racist, and sexist things men said in his presence. He never did win a fight, but neither did he give up, and Bucky loved him for that. But Bucky also worried that his days were numbered. Not only did Steve love to pick fights, but he was also chronically ill, underweight, and prone to bouts of depression. Bucky’s worst fear would be to come home one day and find Steve dead, or worse, not find him at all, and only read in the paper that the no-good Rogers kid had lost his last fight. Bucky’s constant battle was between loving Steve’s good qualities and hating them too. Everything that made him special was also his downfall in the end.

One day, in late August of 1937, Steve came home with more injuries after just having gotten over a chest infection. It started a row between them that lasted several terse days, in which they said few words to each other until Steve finally relented and gave his apologies. Bucky knew they weren’t worth much because Steve would just go out and do it again the next week. But he took them anyway, because it was better to love Steve while he was alive than lose him while they were in a fight. It was better to make up and say the things he wanted to say, than not say them at all.

So when Steve went to bed that night, Bucky climbed in next to him and wrapped him up in a hug. 

“You’re an absolute idiot,” Bucky said, squeezing Steve until Steve laughed and squirmed. 

“But I’m your idiot, so you have to love me,” Steve said, through his laughter.

“Unfortunately.” Bucky let Steve go but didn’t get off the bed, and Steve rolled over until his head was on Bucky’s chest and his arm around Bucky’s waist. It was damn near impossible that Steve couldn’t hear the way Bucky’s heart beat louder and more forceful just at the contact, how he broke out in a sweat because Steve was in his arms, or how his cheeks grew hot thinking of those three words tripping off the end of his tongue. 

_I love you_ , Bucky thought, as they lay there the way lovers lie together. _I love you I love you I love you_ , his heart murmured with every beat, and again for good measure, _I love you._

But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Instead, he started up a conversation about the Dodgers, even though he had never shown much of an interest in sport. Possibly Steve thought it was to appease him since he was the sports-lover. He dug his nose into the crown of Steve’s head to inhale the scent of his hair: sunlight and chaffed wheat. Bucky’s heart continued to thump away, beating steadily under Steve’s chin as they both fell asleep, curling around each other in the night like intermingling vines. 

In the morning, all was well again. Bucky made coffee, the kind that puts a hop in your step and your ass in the john, and they went down to the pier for Steve to finish his latest commission. While Steve drew the harbour, Bucky took photos of the dockhands and chatted to the sex workers who frequented the area and knew him by name. Sometimes Bucky would help out at the docks, exercising his lean and muscular body, sometimes for a fish dinner, sometimes just for the fun of it. They never paid him in coins, and Bucky never had an actual job until the Army called him up for service. 

More often than not, Bucky himself would appear in Steve’s artwork. Lying on the sofa on a hot Sunday afternoon, reading a book on the fire escape as the sun set, or huddled in a sweater in Prospect Park—nothing Bucky did escaped Steve’s keen gaze. Steve captured him in grey, in black and white, in color; in the snow, in heatwaves, in early Fall, in late Spring; in underwear, in coats, in the nude. 

Everything they did, they did together at least once. They went dancing until Steve’s feet hurt, they drank bathtub whiskey during Prohibition, and they played records all night long. They were inseparable, and in the eyes of anyone living today, we would consider that a common-law marriage. 

Except they never confessed their feelings to each other. Bucky kept those three words to himself but expressed his love in other, less obvious ways. On Steve’s birthdays, they would sit on the roof of their apartment building, shoulders bumping as the fireworks bloomed overhead. They would trade stories about all the places they wanted to drag the other one too—places they read about in books like _The Count of Monte-Cristo_ , _Frankenstein_ and _Dracula_. Bucky’s favorite stories were Greek and Roman myths, and he would buy hardcover volumes of them to give to Steve as presents.

Steve showed his love, too. Not only did he paint and draw Bucky, he was also a physical being who loved to touch and feel everything in reach. When they sat together on their sofa, Steve would put his feet in Bucky’s lap, and Bucky would rub them to ease whatever pain he felt that day. When he came home from his job on a payday to find Bucky waiting for him, Steve would grab his hands and exclaim that they were rich and could eat like kings, and they would waltz around the kitchen, singing and laughing. Steve would instigate hugs, sometimes under the guise of cuddling for warmth, which Bucky was all too happy to give.

It was the best time of their lives. They were young, in love, and on top of the world.

— _What I Owe To Him_ , Penguin, 1989.

* * *

Between Bucky, Amy June, and Amy June’s partner Reggie, they get Becca and John’s house packed up within a couple of days. Together, they’ve finagled a sweet deal on a house in a retirement village that comes with everything they’ll need: a shower seat and an emergency buzzer. The plan is to sell the furniture, paint the walls, fix the drywall in places it’s cracked, replace the plumbing with something modern, and get rid of the asbestos in the ceilings. 

“Why don’t you take it over?” Becca asks Amy June. “We could leave it to you and then you and Reggie could live here. You’ll be closer to us, then.”

Amy June rolls her blue eyes. “Ma, come on. Me and Reggie live in Winnipeg now.”

“But it’s so far away,” Becca whines. Bucky is instantly teleported back to their teenage years, Becca crying about not being able to go to high school with her friend Vinnie in Arkansas. 

Reggie puts her hand on Becca’s arm as she passes into the kitchen. “We always visit when we can, you know that.”

“Get out of the way, Becs, you’re taking up all the room in the house,” Bucky says, pushing past Becca to get another box full of photo albums out to Amy June’s car.

“Fuck off. You can keep those, by the way,” Becca calls out after him.

“I was planning on it,” he shouts back. 

Later he puts all the pictures of Steve up on his kitchen walls so that they can smile down at him while he eats breakfast. He keeps Steve’s art safe and secure in his bedroom.

* * *

Sarah Rogers was a forgiving woman. Where most people would break, she would bend. When Steve would come home—or when Bucky would drag Steve home—she would fix up his cuts and bruises with antiseptic while singing softly. The way she cradled Steve’s face in her weathered hands taught Bucky about being tender, and the way she sang taught Bucky the need to be sweet. It wasn’t always a good idea to butt heads with Steve; if anything, that made him more recalcitrant. Sometimes he needed honey and tenderness, so that’s what Bucky gave him.

For 16 years, Bucky learned the ways Steve liked to be loved. After all, love is a process, one of change and forgiveness. But he first learned that love from Sarah, who was, if anything, too giving of herself. She fed a troupe of neighborhood cats who would come to her door every night, miaowing and hissing until they were sated. The children in the wards she worked loved to see her because she would throw parties for them on their birthdays and bring them lollipops when the doctors weren’t looking. Her friends always had her as a shoulder to cry on when one of their husbands left or cheated or died. Life was fragile back then, and Sarah knew the weight of that better than anyone.

Most of all, she knew how to love her son, who was both unbreakable and unbending. It was his mother’s love who shaped him into the person he was who drove a plane full of explosives into the Arctic Circle to save the entire Eastern Seaboard. It was Sarah Rogers who taught Steve how to love others and how to show that love. It was Sarah Rogers who taught both Bucky and Steve the value of family and how to find comfort in unfamiliar places. 

In his biography, Bucky credits a lot of his growth throughout his teenage years to this remarkable woman, who grew to raise Bucky as a son as much as Steve. It goes to show you never can tell where a mother’s love will come from, and how it can shape you into the person you are meant to be.

—Hernando Vasquez, “A Story of Love: Rereading _What I Owe To Him_ 15 years on”, hernandovasquez.com, 2004.

* * *

Everything seems like it’s going alright for once, and then 9/11 happens. Even though Becca and John moved into a retirement village three years before, Bucky still calls her, his voice shaking from misplaced terror. 

“Becs?”

“I’m here, Bucky,” she says, a tremor in her voice too. “Oh god, it’s awful. Are you watching the news?”

He’d just gone to the bodega for a loaf of bread and a carton of soy milk when the news broke, people flocking the streets to see, every tv in the entire city turned to the broadcasts.

“No, I—I can’t.”

“It’s okay, Bucky, it’s okay. Don’t watch it, it’s horrible.”

He can hear it in the background, the measured voices of the news anchors, the people screaming in the streets. He sits down at his table with his tea and thinks of doing the same thing all those years ago. A different apartment, sure, a different event, but one that changed the course of his life so drastically, that changed his entire world. 

“Are you still there?”

Bucky clears his throat. “Yeah, Becs. Still here.”

The voices drown out as she moves away from the television, closing a door behind her. “Tell me what you did on the weekend, to take my mind off things.”

“Well, I used the internet again. Shocking, I know, an old geezer like me can even work a computer.”

She laughs. “I hope you’ve been visiting those Bucky Barnes sites to spread some gossip.”

“Oh, you know it.” He opens his laptop up to where he was the night before, looking through the sites that piqued his interest. “One says I was spotted in Australia, in some town called Oakey.”

“Oh, do you go there often?”

“I holiday there, actually. I really love—” He searches the page. “Ushers.”

“Is that a person?”

“I think it’s a hospital.”

Her tinkling laughter rings out across the line. No matter how many times they talk, he loves to hear her laugh, to make her laugh. He loves being her little brother, loves that she’s his big sister. If there’s anyone he’s loved as intently as Steve, it’s Becca.

* * *

UndergroundEliteNY.com

Sarah Saunders looks sssssexy in new bikini pics taken by photographer Lucille Hunter. Talk about girl on girl action.

 _14 September, 2006_  
user: pitchieprincess  
what happened to james barnes???? has anyone seen him around anywhere???

 _14 September, 2006_  
user: lockhardheart  
Omg I remember him. He took some stunning photos. Remember when everyone thought he was Bucky Barnes? Hahahhahahahhahhahah. People are so stupid.

 _15 September, 2006_  
user: pitchieprincess  
roflroflroflroflroflrofl 

_15 September, 2006_  
user: unknownanimus  
i think he retired some dudes from esquire were talking about him at the met gala and no one’s seen him or anything in years he just idk disappeared

 _15 September, 2006_  
user: punkassbitch813  
Keyser Soze

* * *

Bucky stands with the crowd of protestors, shouting as loud as he can. It doesn’t matter. The invasion of Iraq goes forward, and thousands die.

* * *

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened a new exhibit, honoring a great hero of World War II.

While some remember him most as a warrior, Captain America was a great number of things: literaturist, friend, son, and artist. The newest exhibit at the Met shows the lost drawings of Steve Rogers dating from pre-World War II to the time of his death in 1945. The images capture the stunning scenery of pre-war Brooklyn, as well as his favorite subject: the elusive Bucky Barnes. 

Until now, no one knew what Bucky Barnes looked like. Although his biography came out in the late 1980s, he refused to publish any pictures of himself in it, remaining as reclusive as he was mysterious. But now, with the advent of the exhibit, the world is able to see the man himself. 

He was the subject of many of Steve Rogers’s paintings and drawings. Some he did beautiful, intricate studies of, and others were drawn on what appears to be napkins. Most of the drawings were done pre-war, but there are three in the exhibit that detail Bucky Barnes which were drawn during. The depth of Rogers’s talent, his photographic memory, and his ability to translate that to the page is shown in these drawings. 

The pictures include nude studies of Barnes which show a softer side to him. One painting is done seemingly while Barnes is asleep, naked on top of his bed, his back bared towards the moonlight drifting in through the open windows of their apartment. The artwork is done in a photorealist style that predates the movement. 

Other paintings are done in different styles, such as the impressionist piece of Barnes washing dishes in his underwear, and the surrealist portrait of both of them reading comic books. The cheekiest one that Steve drew was a crudely-drawn sketch of Bucky in women’s lingerie which reads, “Gonna dress you up in my love.” It’s unclear whether Bucky posed for this photo or Steve drew it out of the “carnal sin” he talked about in his last letter. Many scholars believe he was inebriated, as though this was the 1940s equivalent of a drunk text.

The exhibit, entitled “Remembrance of Things Past”, was put together by Maurice Hernandez, a 70-year-old painter from Shelbyville, Indiana, and a legend in his own right. At the opening of the exhibit, Hernandez said, “Let this be known as a study in love. Steve’s artistry is unparalleled, and it’s Bucky’s gift to the world to be able to share that with us. I am proud to call Bucky my friend, and I hope that this gets the attention it deserves. This love, it will outlast us all.”

—Rachel Tolentino, “Remembrance of Art Lost”, syndicatelimes.com, 2010.

* * *

Monty goes first, cancer. Dernier next, a stroke. Dum Dum’s lungs give out eventually. Morita falls down a flight of stairs and doesn’t get back up. Gabe’s diabetes gets the best of him, and he dies in a hospital ward in 2005, surrounded by indifferent doctors and overworked nurses. Korama is there with him, and she gives his eulogy, a touching, heartfelt recount of Gabe’s life, of which Bucky was proud to be a part. 

Bucky attends every funeral with his heart turning to steel. Why does he have to outlive them, his sweetest friends? What makes him so special? Why was he given this curse of life? Was it just to watch everyone around him die? Becca holds his hand throughout Gabe’s funeral, because he and Kimberly always had a place at hers for Thanksgiving, and sometimes they would combine the two families. Korama, Natasha, and Amy June get along like two hands of a clock, and Reggie and Tony Stark talk NASA like it’s their job. 

But Bucky feels the weight of the years crushing him to dust. If it wasn’t for Becca, he doesn’t know what he’d do. She sits with him when he needs it, and calls him when he retreats to his bedroom for days. He hasn’t picked up a camera in months, hasn’t hosted a shoot in his studio since 2001. He listens to Johnny Cash more often than he should. He picks up smoking again, in the hopes that it’ll finish the job he started in 1945. 

Bucky’s life is crumbling and he doesn’t know what to do. He is stricken by the grief he kept at bay for the last 35 years. All those nights of thinking Steve would slip away from him, would be dead by the next morning, and now he is.

But he lives on. The only silver lining is that Steve lives on with him.

* * *

alittlebitofoneortwo.livejournal.com

Title: Everyone I Know Goes Away In The End  
Fandom: Historical RPF  
Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers | Captain America  
Content warnings: period-typical homophobia, internalized homophobia, internalized ableism  
Rating: NC-17  
Word Count: 3,400

Summary:  
Bucky never goes home. He and Steve steal moments on the frontlines.

A/N:  
This is God’s sandbox, I’m just playing in it. Don’t Like, Don’t Read!!!

* * *

Bucky watches every single movie and television show, reads every book, magazine and newspaper article, and listens to every book on tape that he can get his hands on about Captain America. Most get everything wrong that wasn’t written in his letters. Gabe and the other Howlies never talked, out of loyalty to Bucky or Steve or both, and when Carter gave her first, last, and only interview about him, she kept it only to Steve and didn’t mention Bucky, even when pressed. She owed him that, but he doesn’t care. What she did hurt him in ways he can’t express. What Steve did—writing those letters—Bucky flip flops on whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. All he knows is that he’s changed because of them. All he knows is that when he sees Steve again, because he will, because whatever divine retribution is waiting for him will bring Steve to him again the way it did the first time, the last time, and every time in between.

* * *

Sarah Saunders steps out into the street amid the thousand flashes of cameras. People push microphones into her face. Her security guards hold them at bay while she struggles to make it to her limo.

“Ms Saunders, what’s your relationship to Lucille Hunter? Will you go on record to say that you’re in a lesbian relationship?”

“Women can date men _and_ women,” she bites back.

The reporters surge against her, melding into one until a new question piques her interest.

“Ms Saunders, what happened to James Barnes? Have you heard from him?”

She pauses before she gets in the limo. She’s tired, she wants to go home, and she has a plane to catch at 4am tomorrow that will take her to Brazil for a fashion shoot. She’s always wanted to go to Brazil. “I’ve talked to him, yes. Why?”

The reporter pushes to the front of the crowd. “He hasn’t done a photoshoot in three years. Is he still alive? Are you going to go on record?”

She purses the moue of her lips before answering, a trademark of hers that makes the cameras flash faster. “He’s alive. And he wants people to respect his privacy.”

“Ms Saunders, is it true that he’s Bucky Barnes? Is he the one Captain America wrote his letters—”

She closes the door behind her and lights a cigarette. James Barnes. No one has talked about him in years. If you believe the hype, it’s like he dropped off the face of the earth. But she had lunch with him last week, and he looked as healthy as ever. 

Trouble always did follow that guy around.

* * *

It’s his hair that goes gray first. One strand, then two, then the whole lot in a matter of days. While that is happening, his skin starts to sag, and wrinkles spread across it like cracks in a dropped iPhone screen. Liver spots appear on his temple. He loses muscle strength, and he can’t run anymore. His bladder wakes him up in the middle of the night. He forgets names of streets, of bars, of places he frequented in Russia and during his time at SHIELD that he once remembered as clearly as his own name. When he looks in the mirror, he sees what he’s expected to see all along.

At 92, his soul has finally caught up to him.

* * *

CAPTAIN AMERICA FOUND ALIVE

Reports from the Pentagon have confirmed that Steve Rogers was found four days ago and has been resuscitated in a containment facility in New York. Just how the Captain survived being suspended in ice for the past 66 years is a mystery, but many believe it to be a side effect of the “supersoldier” serum he was given as part of Project Rebirth. 

The burning question on everyone’s Twitter page seems to be, “How will he take the news that his letters have been released?” He disappeared when it was illegal for two men to even hold hands, and now he has woken up in a time when they can get married. Only time will tell how he responds to this announcement. 

—Cassandra Sweet, _Washington Post_ , 2011.

* * *

_You said this to me one time, and I’ll remember it until the day I die: “If it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be a soul alive who understands you.” I knew it then, and I know it now, it’s true. All those covers of me in comic books, all those newspaper clippings you’re collecting just to embarrass me, they can’t cut to the truth the way you always could with that sharp wit and wicked tongue. I simply lost my senses. I want you on me, I want you so much it scares me. I want you between my teeth, to bite down on the meat of you, to savor your taste. I want to eat you alive, to feel your cherry blossom leaves fall on my skin. I’ll take this carnal sin with me wherever I go, I’ll carry it until the ends of the earth if I have to, until I find you again, because it lives in me but it’s yours, and I’m yours too._

* * *

Loving goes two ways: the lover and the person loved. There is a knock on Bucky’s door. He answers in his pajamas to find the man standing there.

Finally, the growl comes out, the unutterable name, and that name, as it always was, is: “ _Steve_.”


	7. 2011

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the character death chapter. Don't worry, it all gets resolved in the end! No one ever really stays dead in the MCU or my heart.

He stands there—all six-feet-two-inches of him—with that dopey smile on his face—the one Bucky could never—can’t ever—resist, the one that blossoms into unbridled adoration when he realizes who he’s looking at. 

“Steve,” Bucky says. It’s more a breath, an exhale, a sigh. An unnameable emotion—that is really an amalgamation of them—grinds against his insides and turns them to mush. An aching smile pulls his lips back to the point where he can’t talk and it hurts—it hurts to look at him, it hurts to smile at him, it hurts to love him, but that has never, not once, stopped Bucky before.

“Bucky,” Steve says, and it’s pained. The way he looks at Bucky is pained. Not—Bucky is sure of this, as sure as he is that he knows Steve’s name, more than he knows his own—because he doesn’t like what he sees, but because he hasn’t seen enough of it, can’t see enough of it. 

His hands reach out tentatively as though he’s not sure he can touch, and Bucky is too struck by the enormity of the moment to do anything more than stare.

“I wasn’t sure,” Steve starts, then stops. His eyes are so big, pleading. 

“What, Steve?”

“If you’d want to see me again, after all this time.”

Bucky stares at him for all of two seconds before he grabs Steve’s hands and hauls him in for a hug. “You idiot, you idiot,” he says, pushing his face into Steve’s neck, inhaling the scent of him. He smells different—different soap, different food, different clothes—but the underlying scent of him is still the same: that clean, sun-baked, hands-in-the-clay kind of smell. 

“I’m your idiot,” Steve says, his hands coming up around Bucky’s back. His shoulder shake, with laughter or tears Bucky can’t tell until he pulls back to see Steve’s face wet. He wipes Steve’s tears with his thumbs, holding his face in his hands.

“Shh, Steve, shh, honey, it’s okay.”

“I’m so sorry,” Steve says, tears flowing freely. “Buck, I’m so sorry, you know if I had any other choice—”

“Hey, now,” Bucky says, his voice pitched low and quiet. “Hey, none of that. Okay? Let’s go inside.”

Bucky leads him in as Steve catches his hand and follows, closing the door behind them. The place isn’t much—yellow wallpaper, some furniture, a tv, the photos in the kitchen. He sold his last apartment in 2006 along with his studio; he wasn’t using it, and it hurt him to go downstairs every day just to see the walls splashed with the pomegranate juice stains he could never get out. He has money, a roof, a bed, a camera; he wants for nothing.

It takes a moment for him to realize they’re just standing in the kitchen holding hands. Steve gazes at the photos with something like reverence on his face. Steve doesn’t look any different: he has three-day growth and he’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, but he’s still Steve, always Steve.

Bucky ducks his head. “They’re um. To remind me of the good times.”

Steve glances back at him with a shocked expression. “Buck, you built a shrine to me.”

Bucky barks out a laugh. “No, it’s not a _shrine_.”

“Then why are there candles here? Your dog tags?” He laughs, a glorious sound.

Bucky shrugs. “I needed to keep them somewhere.”

Steve doesn’t let go of Bucky’s hand as he approaches the photos, touching them with the tips of his fingers. “I remember these. Christmases and Easters at yours when Ma was working. And she always came with us when she wasn’t. I didn’t know you still had these photos. I mean, like four days ago I didn’t know.” He turns to Bucky with a sad smile. “I’ve missed a lot, haven’t I?”

Bucky nods. His throat tightens. “Yeah, Steve. You missed a lot.”

He gazes into Bucky’s face with longing written over his own. He touches Bucky’s cheek with the hand that was touching the photos, just as gently, just as reverently. Bucky closes his eyes as Steve traces Bucky’s wrinkles, running his thumb down Bucky’s temples. Then he pulls back quickly and Bucky snaps his eyes open.

“Sorry, I,” Steve says, looking down. “You look so different, but it’s still you.”

“Yeah, it’s still me.”

“Two years ago you were 26.”

“And now we’re both in our 90s.”

Steve smiles and looks back at him. “I missed you.”

Bucky laughs. “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

Steve laughs too, his eyes crinkling in joy. “I guess the world knows how much.”

“Can we sit down?” Bucky asks. “I’m an old man now, I need my rest.” Steve nods and Bucky leads him by the hand into his bedroom where they sit on the bed against the pillows. Bucky moves around until he’s comfortable, and Steve watches, rapt. “What are you lookin’ at, punk?”

“You,” Steve says simply. “I haven’t seen your face in years—decades, I guess. Only what I drew in my spare time. Forgive me if all I want to do is look at you.”

“Nothing worth looking at,” Bucky says, sniffing, but he knows what Steve means. He wants to look at Steve until he goes blind. He never did get used to Steve being big; it’s still a shock, despite the photos and editorials over the years, to see Steve as anything other than that sickly little kid Bucky could tuck under his arm. He rolls onto his side and Steve does the same until they’re facing each other. 

Steve puts his hand on Bucky’s chest and closes his eyes. “I can hear your heartbeat, now. It’s as steady as ever.” Bucky places his hand over Steve’s. “Remember when you used put my fingers on your pulse and try and sync our heartbeats? Because I was sick or scared or just out of it from being hit too hard. And you would put my hand around your wrist and say, ‘Feel my heartbeat, Stevie,” as if it was beating just for me.”

Bucky nods. “That’s because it did beat for you. You were always the life inside me.”

Steve smiles again. “Such a poet.”

Bucky snorts. “You can talk. What the fuck were those letters you sent me?”

“Well, if you recall, I didn’t actually send them to you. I gave them to Peggy in the case of my untimely death.”

“Yeah, I got that.” 

They grin dopily at each other while holding hands.

“I haven’t seen her yet,” Steve admits.

Bucky’s smile falls. He feels like a bucket of water has been thrown over the campfire of the nice moment they were having. “Steve, I can’t—”

“No, I know, I just—wanted you to know that you were the first person I wanted to see. You know that no one else compares to you, right? I don’t care what you’ve done, who you’ve loved, what you’ve seen. I want to be in your life, if you’ll have me.”

The moment is back. “If I’ll have you? I think you’ll recall it was you who said I can’t seem to get rid of you.”

Steve smiles sheepishly. “It was easier to say in a letter I didn’t think you’d read.” 

“Kinda shat the bed on that one, didn’t I?”

Steve laughs, leaning his head into the hollow under Bucky’s chin. “Well, it’s not your fault. I did ask them to be delivered when I died. I wanted you to know, one way or another.” His breathing slows, his breath hot on Bucky’s chest. His hand curls around the material of Bucky’s shirt, hooking him there in case Bucky tries to flee. 

He almost does. It’s almost too much for him to be in this room with Steve, after all this time. But then Steve throws his arm over Bucky’s waist and burrows into him, and if it weren’t for his 100-pound-plus bulk and the way Bucky’s back aches perpetually, Bucky would think it was 1937 all over again. Their legs entangle like they used to, and Bucky puts his chin on the crown of Steve’s head. He inhales: chaffed wheat and sunlight. It’s good. He’s good.

They must fall asleep because the next thing Bucky knows it’s five hours later and the sun has gone down. Good thing he didn’t bother getting out of his pajamas, because he knows from experience that his favorite pair of jeans are awful to sleep in. 

They’re still in the same position. Usually, Steve would move around a lot in the night, and Bucky would move with him, but today they slept soundly and motionlessly. Bucky unsticks himself from the sweaty mess they’ve made to grab a glass of water. He grabs two, pinching the glasses together at the top to carry them in. He sets them down and turns the A/C on, before looking back to Steve.

Steve rolled onto his front in the thirty seconds Bucky was gone, seeming to seek out Bucky’s heat instinctively, and he sighs as he presses his face into the duvet. A feeling of absolute adoration balloons in Bucky’s chest, and he sits down on the edge of the bed to run his gnarled hand through Steve’s hair. It’s as short as he remembers, and it doesn’t stick up how it did from his helmet. Instead, it falls over his forehead as it used to when he was smaller. Bucky loves the humanness of him. Bucky has spent his life loving Steve, all his mood swings, fights, joys, laughter, and illnesses. He will always love Steve, and that’s the fucking be-all and end-all. Steve is Bucky’s sunrise and sunset. When Steve died, so did a part of Bucky, and he realizes now he lived not just to tell their tale but to be alive when Steve came back. The utter serendipity of it astounds him, and he laughs.

Steve grumbles and opens his eyes. “Whuh?”

“Nothing, Stevie. Go back to sleep.”

Steve reaches up to pull Bucky down with him, and Bucky ends up sitting against the pillows with Steve’s head in his lap. They stay like that for hours, Bucky watching the rise and fall of Steve’s chest as he sleeps, loving nothing more. 

Eventually, Steve wakes, but by then it’s past midnight, and Bucky himself is dozing quietly. Steve shoots up from the bed and startles them both.

“What, what?”

“Sorry,” Steve says, almost falling off the bed. “I, um. Thought I was back on the front.”

Bucky can hear his heartbeat jackrabbit, can smell the sudden fear radiating off him. He holds out his arms and Steve shuffles over on his knees to hug him. 

“I have those dreams, too,” Bucky says. “Sometimes I’m back in Russia, or in Italy, and they’re hunting me down like a dog. Sometimes I’m one of the guys I found in the Hydra bases. Sometimes I’m one of the women the Red Room killed in their extermination. That was my last mission in Russia. I couldn’t take it in the end.”

“Will you tell me about it?” Steve nods and his stubble rasps pleasantly against Bucky’s ear. 

“Someday,” Bucky says, a quiet hum.

Steve sighs. “Towards the end, I was so tired, I just wanted to go home. I figured home wouldn’t be what I thought it was, but I wanted to be with you anyway. You’re my home.”

Bucky laughs a little. “I think you overestimate my ability to take care of you.”

“Why?” Steve asks, a little offended. “You always took care of me before. You did it even though I fought you every step of the way. Making me take my iron tablets, making sure I was rugged up enough to leave the house on winter mornings. I won’t fight you now, I promise.”

“I know, I know, it’s just—” Bucky pauses, thinking. It’s hard to put into words what he feels. He was never particularly verbose. “I want you to have the life you deserve. Even if it’s not with me.”

Steve scoffs and pulls back. His brow furrows and he looks angry. “The fuck are you talking about, Barnes? I want to be with you even if it’s not the ‘life I deserve.’ Fuck you for thinking I wouldn’t.” He takes Bucky’s hand and holds it to his chest. “I have to say it. It’s time. I love you, James Buchanan Barnes.”

Bucky feels his throat grow tight again as he ducks his head to escape the sincerity in Steve’s gaze. “I’m old now, Stevie. I’m broke down. You know I yelled at some kids to get out of the bodega the other day?” 

Steve laughs, but it’s wet. “You did not.” 

“I did too.” Bucky sighs and looks back up. “You gotta move on. You gotta live your life now like you didn’t get to before.” 

Steve holds Bucky’s hand tighter and raises it to his mouth to kiss the knuckles. “I don’t want to live my life if it’s not with you. Do you hear me, Buck?” 

Bucky swallows as tears well up in his eyes. “Yeah, Stevie. I hear you.”

“I think if anyone deserves a happy ending, it’s us.” Steve presses Bucky’s knuckles to his eyes and they come away wet. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, quietly. “I think so too.”

Steve stays the night because 1) he has nowhere else to go except back to the containment facility, and 2) Bucky isn’t letting him leave. They eat peanut butter toast at 2am and sit on the floor of Bucky’s living room with their legs crossed over each other. Sister Rosetta Tharpe plays on Bucky’s record player that he bought secondhand, and they fall asleep again as the sun rises through the bedroom window.

When Bucky wakes up, it’s to find a friend sitting at the end of his bed. 

“Oh, fuck me,” he says and breathes until his heart rate goes back down.

“Hi, Bucky,” Natasha says, flicking her curtain of auburn curls over her shoulder. Even though she’s 59, she looks and acts like a spry 28-year-old. “Hi, Bucky’s boyfriend.”

Steve lifts the covers back to pop his head up. “Hi. Uh, Bucky’s girlfriend?”

Bucky puts his head in his hands and Natasha snorts. “I wish, but no. I’m Natasha.” 

Steve slithers his hand out from beneath the covers and she shakes it. “I’m Steve.”

“You _are_ Steve,” Natasha says, with all the subtlety of a lion licking antelope blood off its chin. 

“Do you want something, Natalia?” The smell of hot chocolate wafts from his bedside table, where two steaming mugs of it wait by his phone. It’s 4pm, a couple of hours later than when Steve arrived yesterday. They’ve spent over a day together. Bucky tries to hide a smile when he passes one mug to Steve, but he can’t help it. It’s so nice to wake up with him on a fine afternoon and to be alive. 

“Just to introduce myself. I work for SHIELD now. Also, I’m Bucky’s best friend.”

“Not best friend so much as the little sister I never wanted.”

She holds her hand to her heart. “You wound me, Barnes.”

“Hi Natasha,” Steve says, giving her that patented Steve Rogers charm and smile. “Bucky told me a little about you. Russia, right? It’s nice to meet you, and to know that Bucky made at least one friend without me.”

“Hey,” Bucky says, but it’s so laden with affection it can’t be classed as offended. Steve glances over at him, grinning. “I made other friends. They all died, but they existed.”

“They were my friends first,” Steve counters. “I basically hand-picked them for you.”

“And yet I did all the work, because _someone_ spent the last 70 years asleep.” 

Natasha watches them with amusement when Bucky finally turns back to her.

“Sorry, Nat, you were saying?”

“The whole country is looking for you right now.” She pulls her phone out of her hoodie pocket and shows them the #WHERESCAP hashtag that’s trending on Twitter. 

“So glad I don’t use Twitter,” Bucky says, taking a sip of hot chocolate.

“What’s Twitter?” Steve asks, taking a sip of his own. 

“Pure evil,” Bucky and Natasha say at the same time. 

“Oh, is it a computer thing?” Steve asks mildly. “An intern at SHIELD showed me how to use a computer.”

Bucky throws his head back and laughs. “So old dogs can be taught new tricks.”

Steve colors, but he’s smiling. “How do you think I found you? The phonebook?”

“I assumed you sniffed me out like a bloodhound.”

“I could definitely smell you from Times Square.” He presses his nose into the crease of Bucky’s elbow and takes a deep sniff. “Smells like you haven’t washed in days.”

“Is this some sort of American intimate mating ritual I’m not aware of?” Natasha asks, glancing between them with a mixture of laughter and disgust. 

“The clueless Russian facade was only cute for the first decade,” Bucky says. He puts his mug down and reaches for his phone, using his teeth to unplug it from the charging cord. He has two dozen messages from Tony, a missed call from Becca, and a message from her that says, _I assume you heard the news? Give me a call when you can._ “Smile,” he says to Steve and snaps a picture of them, bed head and all, to send to Becca. Steve’s face is a pleasant pink. 

“What’s the plan for the day?” Natasha asks. She unfolds her legs from under her and lays them over where Bucky’s are under the duvet. Her socks have pineapples on them, and her sunglasses, resting on top of her head, are in the shape of hearts. She never got to live out her youth as an actual child, so now she takes all the chances she can get to act like the teenage girl she never got to be.

Bucky looks back at Steve, who shrugs. “New York hot dogs?”

“Actually, he’s a vegan now,” Natasha says, pointing a fingergun at Bucky.

Steve grows confused. “What’s a vegan?”

“Like a vegetarian.”

Steve’s draw drops open. “But you love meat! You were always trying to make me eat all the gross parts of the pig because you thought there was more iron in them.”

Bucky shrugs. “Things change. It’s been a long time. I haven’t had to fuss over you, for one.”

Steve shakes his head. “Next thing you’re going to tell me the Dodgers went bust.”

Bucky and Natasha exchange a look that says, _are you going to tell him or am I?_ Bucky sighs and pulls the pin. “Actually, Steve, they moved to LA.”

Steve’s face falls and he looks like he might cry. “Oh, god.”

“Yep. Didn’t want to break it to you like this. Thought you might need an intervention. Also, bananas are weird now.”

A series of emotions cross Steve’s face before he finally settles on disgruntled. “The future sucks.”

Buckle laughs. “Wait until you watch HBO, then you’ll think different.”

After they shower and change into street clothes—Steve takes a pair of Bucky’s jeans and a plaid shirt—they go out for early dinner. Natasha slips her arm through Steve’s and leads them on a tour through Bushwick. They pass Maria Hernandez Park where a group of girls skateboard and a group of guys play basketball. Some art galleries are open, and they take a look around while Bucky tries not to buy everything Steve says “wow” at. They eventually stop at a pizza place to get a pie loaded with truffle oil and sweet potato, which Steve makes delighted noises at. At a bakery afterward, Natasha buys Steve three chocolate croissants and a piece of lemon chiffon pie, because she won’t allow him to go the rest of his life without eating them. Best of all, they see a bunch of openly queer couples holding hands and kissing under streetlights. Gender non-conforming people flaunt their fashion and rainbow pride patches. Bucky watches Steve’s face light up every time he sees them or these little acts of queer defiance and love. 

Sufficiently sated, Natasha walks them back to Bucky’s apartment.

“Are you going to be alright getting home?” Steve asks.

Bucky and Natasha throw their heads back to laugh. 

“I can kill a man eight different ways with my elbow,” Natasha says. “But thanks, Steve. You’re very sweet.”

She kisses him on the cheek, and Bucky as well, before leaving them to it. Steve touches Bucky’s waist as they head up to his apartment. 

“I’m stuffed after those croissants but I know I’ll be hungry again in two hours,” Steve says.

Bucky smiles at him as he unlocks the door. “You’re going to eat me out of house and home.”

“Actually, I have money, apparently.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a SHIELD-issued credit card. “I don’t know what the fuck this is, though.”

Bucky smiles. “It’s like a Charga-Plate. Except now you can swipe or insert it into a small machine. Don’t use it too often, or it’ll make you bankrupt.”

Steve pulls a horrified face and then follows Bucky into the apartment. “They sent me something called an e-mail with all this info on it. Hang on.” Steve rummages through his pockets and pulls out a business card. It has Steve’s name, SHIELD email address, and password on it. “I assume this holds the secrets of the universe.”

“S dot Rogers at SHIELD dot gov. Are you still government property, then?”

Steve shrugs. He stands close as Bucky makes tea, a wall of heat radiating off him. He always ran cold, back then. No insulation. “I guess so. I don’t think being dead stopped them from owning me. They were always going to find me, one way or another.”

Bucky puts his head on Steve’s shoulder as the kettle boils on the stove. He could get an electric one, but there’s nothing he likes more than listening to a metal kettle whistle. Except, of course, hearing Steve’s voice. 

“I read your book.” Steve’s voice is soft, hesitant. He puts his arm around Bucky’s waist as though he expects Bucky to pull away. 

“I read your letters,” Bucky counters. He doesn’t move, just stays with his head on Steve’s shoulder. “After they were already published, of course. So really, the world read them all before me.”

“I didn’t know you felt the same way. Not for sure. I was too scared to ruin our friendship.”

“You should’ve ruined it,” Bucky said, because when he gets around Steve, sometimes his mouth has a mind of its own.

Steve leans in to kiss him, but Bucky pulls away.

“Steve, I—I don’t want to jinx it.” He steps back, distancing them. 

“Oh, okay.” He tries to school his face, but the hurt shows through. “I’m okay with that,” he says, but Bucky can tell he’s lying. “I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

“The thing is, I may never be ready.” Bucky has never hated himself more than in that moment. Steve is giving him everything he’s ever wanted, and even if it’s 80 years later, the fact that he’s still giving so much of himself makes up for it. And yet. “A lot has happened, a lot’s changed.”

Steve folds his arms and nods. He has his serious, Captain America face on. “Then I’m fine with that. I just want to be with you, I don’t care what that means.”

“You want to be with me in that forever?” Bucky says, sticking his tongue out. 

A little of the tension in the room eases. “Jerk.”

“Punk.”

Steve opens his arms and Bucky goes to him, putting his arm around Steve’s waist as Steve puts his around Bucky’s shoulders. “It doesn’t matter to me what our relationship looks like. If you don’t want to kiss me, if you don’t want me to kiss you—I’m fine with that. I’ll sleep on the couch if you want me to.”

“You’ll break the couch,” Bucky says with a laugh. “I love you, Steve. I love you so much it nearly killed me.” This is easier to say when they’re not looking at each other and when Bucky doesn’t have to see the pain in Steve’s eyes. “I refused to even think about you because it would tear me in half.” He takes a shaky breath. “I knew what I had to do to survive. Even if all of me loved you, and every part of me did, I had to bury it, because my love for you would’ve destroyed me.”

Steve runs his hands up and down Bucky’s back, and it’s so good to be comforted like this, not just by anyone but by the love of his life. He loved Vlad, he did, and he still loves Vlad, but Steve is here—he’s alive and he’s whole and they don’t have to hide their love. They can be together. But Bucky isn’t ready to kiss him just yet, because what if it’s not real? What if Steve goes away, and Bucky is alone again? He couldn’t bear it, not after this. 

“I love you too,” Steve says, and they stay like that for a while, hugging in Bucky’s tiny kitchen.

Steve stays in his bed again that night, and they fall asleep with their arms linked as though they’re strolling down the Yellow Brick Road. Steve is Dorothy, obviously, and Bucky is the Tin Man. The rest are all the friends they’ve collected along the way: Stark is the cowardly lion, for obvious reasons, and the Howlies are the Scarecrow, because anyone who chooses to follow Steve’s death wish clearly has no brain in their head. 

The next day, Bucky teaches Steve how to access his bank records, and they both lose their shit at the number they find. 

“ _Four million dollars_ ,” Steve yells. 

“You’re a millionaire. It’s everything you always dreamed of.” Bucky laughs at the incredulity on Steve’s face. He hasn’t spent this much time laughing in years. 

“What do I even do with that much money?”

“Well,” Bucky says, tapping Steve’s credit card on the table. He packs as much mischief into his gaze as he can. “What do you want to do?”

Five minutes later, they’re on the phone with Tony Stark. Forty minutes later, they’re being shown around lofts in Greenwich Village. Two hours later Steve signs a contract and that afternoon, with the help of Amy June, Reggie, Tony, and Pepper Potts, they move Bucky’s bed, furniture, and few possessions into a place overlooking Washington Square Park. 

“Do you see that?” Bucky asks, pointing out the window. Down below, the bronze cast sits gathering moss and attractors. Steve comes over to look, resting his head on Bucky’s shoulder. “That’s us. Down there. Someone made a statue of us and put it in that park for people to come and visit. It’s dirty now from people touching it.”

“I like that,” Steve says. He hums a tune that Bucky doesn’t recognize. His mind slips now and again. He forgets things, silly things, unimportant things. He worries he will forget this too, so he closes his eyes and studies the moment until he can remember the exact pressure of Steve’s chin, the smell of his shampoo, the feeling of the breeze carrying through the window. He wants to remember everything, just as it is right now.

Amy June and Tony cook in the kitchen while Reggie and Pepper crack open a bottle of wine, and Steve and Bucky languish in the heaven of their own making. Steve puts his arms around Bucky’s waist and they sway in the breeze, that sweet hum filling Bucky’s ears. They are old, and in love, and on top of the world.

The next day, they lounge around in bed again, because they can, because it’s wonderful to indulge. 

“Do you mean to tell me,” Steve says, his voice rising higher, “you actually knew about that picture before you shipped off?”

Bucky looks at said picture on his phone—the linework is crude, sure, and the text is barely legible, but it’s become an old favorite of Bucky’s. Terribly drawn art by exceeding talented artists is something inherently wonderful. He zooms in to the scallops on the top of his stockings. “Yep. I found it when I was looking for socks. You didn’t hide it particularly well. I mean, under your bed, Steven? Come on.”

Steve’s face flames red and he sputters. “What was I going to do, hide it under my pillow?” Bucky makes an “eh” noise. “You would’ve found it there anyway, the number of times you slept in my bed.”

“Yours was comfier.”

“Liar,” Steve says, digging his thumbs into Bucky’s side before Bucky pins them down. “You just wanted to be close to me because you love me.”

“’Tis the burden I bear,” Bucky says, trying not to grin.

“Say it again,” Steve says, pitching his voice low, his smile wolfish. 

“I love you,” Bucky says. He presses the pads of his fingers to Steve’s pulse point. The words bloom in his chest before they trip off his tongue. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Steve presses his palm to Bucky’s chest, on his heart. “I can hear it. You know that? I can hear it when your heart beats.” Steve’s eyes blaze with love, his palm warm through Bucky’s shirt, and Bucky has never felt safer, more secure, or more loved than he does right now. They have the rest of their lives to love each other, and they’re making up for lost time.

They order books and art equipment and food and furniture and home goods to fill their apartment with. Steve buys a limited edition of _What I Owe To Him_ that compliments the bound manuscript that Bucky still has from 1988, yellowed with time but still legible. 

“You never told me who the ghostwriter was.” Steve scans their bookshelf to find the perfect place for it.

“Actually, I wrote it.”

Steve’s eyebrows rise. “You naughty bastard.” 

“Yeah, everyone just assumed that it was a ghostwriter, probably because I wrote it in third person, and I never corrected them. Really, I guess I just wanted to keep my air of mystery.”

Steve tugs on the end of Bucky’s ponytail, long enough now to rest over his shoulder. His hair is completely gray now, but it’s soft and curly from his conditioner. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep something to yourself. I guess that’s how we survived back then.”

Becca invites them over because she’s had enough of Bucky “keeping Steve to yourself,” and they turn up with a bottle of gin and her favorite dessert (coconut rum balls; Steve loves them too). The staff keep the house clean and make sure Becca and John have enough to eat. There are games and recreation in the communal hall, and Becca has a tablet to use the internet with, along with their smartphones. 

“We should move in here,” Bucky says when Becca explains the calisthenics classes they take. John needs a walker now, but Becca seems as spry as ever.

“Buck, you know I’d just carry you from room to room if your legs ever gave out.”

“Legs? It’s my back that’s killing me.”

Becca takes Steve’s face in her hands and kisses his cheeks. Steve blushes but doesn’t pull away. “You look the same as you always did. Aside from all that muscle, I mean.”

“Takes some getting used to,” Steve says, sheepishly. 

A week later, Becca comes down with bronchitis and has to be put on an oxygen tank. Bucky spends four days fussing over her before she kicks him out of the village under the promise that she’ll call if anything happens.

A week later, Natasha comes over to introduce her new partner Clint, who gazes at her like a man in love, but also spills the jar of jelly beans he’s brought over “for good luck” all through their entryway. 

“No use crying over spilled jellybeans,” Bucky says, as he gets the broom. Steve leads them to the sofa, which is big enough to fit eight people. 

“It’s been a month now,” Natasha says, thanking Bucky as he puts down a pitcher of ice tea. “How are you feeling about being alive again?”

Steve shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips. In Steve-speak, that means he’s ecstatic. “I like it. It was overwhelming at first, especially when I went into Times Square, but I’m adjusting.”

“Nightmares?” Clint asks, a hint of solidarity in his voice. 

Steve waves his hand. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Bucky thinks back to the nights Steve awakens screaming, the nights Bucky does the same. 

Natasha kicks her shoes off and pulls her feet up under her. “Fury wants to know if you’re interested in joining SHIELD.”

Steve glances at Bucky where he’s sitting on the armrest. “Not particularly,” he says, flippantly, as though he’s already thought about this. 

“He thought you might say that,” Natasha says. “But things are happening—in our country and all over the world—that require our, well, input. Political disruptions, civilian casualties, executions of heads of state—things that need to be stopped while they can be. You fought for a good cause once.”

“And I have a good cause now,” Steve says. “I want to live my life.”

Natasha seems to take that into consideration but continues.“What if something happens that can’t be stopped? What if the world needs you again?” She looks pained as she says it. “Steve, I know you have a good life now, but the truth is you’re in a position where you can help people, on a global scale. If World War III were to break out tomorrow, what would you do?”

Steve looks down at his hands. “Tell Fury I’ll think about it. I can’t give him a definitive answer to a hypothetical.” Bucky strokes his shoulder and Steve catches his hand in his own, pressing a kiss to the back of it, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it motion except for how Bucky’s hand burns like Steve’s mouth is a branding iron. 

They finally make it out of the apartment, to the delight of the internet. Natasha sends them screenshots of tweets that say things like, “Captain America seen in Greenwich Village with mystery beau: could this be the famous Bucky Barnes?” Mostly, people leave them alone, except for the kids who come up to Steve on the street asking for autographs, which he has a Sharpie in his pocket for. The city has changed a lot, and Steve soaks up the surroundings like a paintbrush, and then they go home where he can put it to the canvas. Steve spends the next few months making the best art of his life, now that he’s no longer perpetually starving and prone to illness. And, impossibly, Bucky’s love for him blooms ever brighter each day, a flower left in the sun after years of being kept in a closet. They have a good life, and it’s theirs.

Steve buys a boat. Or more like Bucky convinces Steve to buy a boat. It has a motor and a hood and they take it out on the ocean where they watch the Statue of Liberty disappear, and then reappear when they come back. They spend hours at sea, listening to the sloshing of the waves against the boat, feeling the sea breeze on their skin, and watching the sun dip lower and lower in the sky. Guided by the moonlight, they make their way back home, to their home, to their little slice of paradise. 

For the last two years, Bucky has been volunteering at a local clinic that provides free therapy to LGBTQ teens and adults. He took a couple of weeks off to be with Steve, but when Bucky tells him about it, he wants to go there and meet everyone Bucky mentions.

As she’s raising the mug to her lips, Lauren, the other admin assistant, spills her coffee all over herself when Steve introduces himself. Raf, one of the therapists, does a double-take. Cecile, who runs the Diverse Voices gender therapy group, blushes so furiously that Bucky worries she might pass out. 

“You _are_ Bucky, I freakin’ knew it,” Emman, the resident social worker, says. “The arm, the camera, man. I should’ve said something but I thought, ‘No, girl, better to say nothing, he probably doesn’t want to be outed.’”

Bucky chuckles. “You’re right, I wanted to keep to myself. But I’m okay now, I promise. And you can call me Bucky, now. Or continue calling me James, it doesn’t matter.”

Emman shrugs. “Anything is fine with me.”

Steve sticks around for the day, talking to Bucky’s coworkers and fielding questions from the kids that stop by. They brighten up when they see him, and when Steve sits in on Bucky’s turn to host the Sexuality & Me group meeting, Bucky realizes what he was doing all along. By not coming out as who he really is, the man Steve wrote his letters for, the queer icon that the world wanted, he was depriving people like these kids the opportunity to see themselves reflected in an adult who survived all these years to tell that tale. There are so few queer adults left, so many of that generation killed by government inaction and a plague they never saw coming. But he is ready now for the world to see him.

When Sade tells a story about how she was kicked out of home at 13, a couple of them cry, including Steve. She always had a way with words and emotions, and Bucky has been encouraging her, and others in the group, to write about their feelings, or express them any way they can. The kids keep coming back, so Bucky must be doing something right.

They walk through Washington Square Park, like they do most nights, holding hands. They stop by the statue, now overgrown with moss and grass, adorned with flowers and rainbow flags. Steve reaches down to pick up one of the notes pinned into the grass and holds it out for Bucky to read. 

“‘Thank you for teaching me that love can endure even the hardest of challenges.’” His chest aches from the sentiment, and Steve pins it back in place. 

“It was so hard for us, wasn’t it?” Steve muses as they stroll through the park. “We couldn’t talk about it openly, couldn’t act on it in public. And now we can hold hands while the world celebrates love.”

“It really is something.”

When they get inside, Bucky pulls Steve over to the window in the living room. “Steve, I wanted to say something.” The moonlight plays through the slats and across Steve’s face, lighting up his doubt and insecurity. “It’s a good thing, don’t worry.”

“What is it?”

Bucky licks his lips and watches Steve’s eyes track the movement. “Ever since you came back, it’s like we’ve been living in a fantasy. A good one, don’t get me wrong, it’s been the best time of my life. But I realize now I was holding back. I love you, I said I love you and I meant it, but seeing you with those kids tonight, helping them, talking to them, and listening to them, showed me that you’re more than just a fantasy I made up in my head. I’ve been so caught up in the idea of you, of us, of our love for each other, that I had to make sure you were real before I moved forward. But I’m sure now.”

Steve sniffles as Bucky finishes. “Can I kiss you, now?”

“Yes, yes,” Bucky says, stepping forward, pressing his yeses to Steve’s mouth, “yes, kiss me, kiss me.”

Steve does, his lips warm as sunlight, his breath like the wind on a fresh spring day, his body curving around Bucky’s like the encompassing darkness of a natural cave. Bucky is safe here. Bucky is the safest he’s ever been. Bucky is the most loved he’s ever been. 

Over the coming months, Steve decides he wants to start helping out in the community. He commits to volunteering at local community organizations, going to planning meetings where he sits for hours just to get his say on the newest shopping complex that will destroy a public park, and making hundreds of packed lunches for the unhoused neighbors of New York. Bucky is so proud of him it makes his heart race. And every night they lie in bed, together again, as the world spins outside their window.

Christmas comes again, and then the New Year, and then Easter. They hop between Amy June and Reggie’s place in Winnipeg, Tony’s new building in Manhattan, and Natasha and Clint’s temporary home in DC. 

But then, in early May of 2012, an alien attacks the world, and Steve leaves their reprieve for a helicarrier in the middle of the ocean. He saves the world, because of course he does, while Bucky sits on their sofa, cycling through news stations in a fit of anxiety. Steve makes it home, takes off his terrible uniform, and he passes out for three days. When he wakes up, Bucky stuffs him full of tea and pasta Alfredo to help him recover, and he takes it all with that grateful, I’ll-always-love-you smile he reserves just for Bucky. 

“I know I shouldn’t ask,” Bucky says, when Steve is back to fighting fitness. He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair as she looks up at him. His hair is long, almost shoulder-length, and curls at the edges. “But I don’t want you doing that again. I don’t care if the world needs you, if it makes me the most selfish man on the planet. I need you alive.”

Steve nods. “I won’t, I promise.”

“Remember when you said if anyone deserves to have a happy ending, it’s us?”

Steve smiles. “I do.”

“I’m having my happy ending right now. Would be a shame to ruin it.”

Steve leans up on his elbows to kiss Bucky senseless.

One day, Bucky struggles to get out of bed. He tries to walk down the stairs and falls, catching himself on the handrail. His hand shakes and he forgets things more and more. He has to go to the doctor because his blood pressure is too low and he passes out. He struggles to go to the bathroom by himself, and when Steve helps him, despite the years they spent before the war with the bathroom door open and nothing between them, he feels ashamed.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he says, lying down because being up makes his head spin.

“Like what?” Steve puts a glass of water and his medication on the bedside table. 

“Old, broke down, barely alive.”

“You’re still alive to me.”

Bucky feels a tear slide down his temple and hit the pillow. “You sure you don’t want to go live your life with someone else? Better than watching someone die.”

Steve turns angry at the thought. “Bucky, I don’t want to hear that. I mean it.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, cowed. He’s so tired all the time now. After 70 years of not so much as the sniffles, the serum is wearing off. He’s succumbing to more and more accidents, more and more illnesses. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

“You know,” Steve says, smoothing down Bucky’s plait. “When I came out of the ice, I knew I had to find you again. And finding my way back to you was familiar. Loving you wasn’t anything new. It was just a fact of life. I never stopped loving you, Buck. Even when I was dead. I died loving you, and I’ll love you until you don’t want me to anymore, and even then I can’t make any promises.”

Bucky leans up on his elbow. “Do you want to get married, then?”

It takes a second, blind-sided as Steve gets, for the realization of what Bucky said to dawn on his face. “Don’t tease me, Buck.”

“‘M not teasing.”

“Yes,” Steve says, kissing Bucky’s forehead, his cheeks, his eyes. “Yes, I do, goddamn, I’ve never wanted anything more.”

They call Becca first to tell her to get ready for the wedding of the century, and then Pepper to organize it—because who the fuck knows about organizing a wedding? Pepper, who knows about everything. 

“When do you want it? Six months? A year?”

“Uh,” Steve says, looking at Bucky. “Now?”

“Now?” Pepper takes a moment and they can hear her tapping away at a keyboard. 

“How about a week to get everyone here,” Bucky suggests.

“Good idea. A week.”

“Fellas,” Pepper says, with the tone she often employs around Tony, “it takes more than a week to plan a wedding, even with my exceptional skills. You’ll need to give everyone more of a warning than that.”

“Okay, a month,” Steve says.

“Two months?”

“Much better,” Pepper says, still tapping away. “I’ll call the caterer, the flower people, we’ll need to get you fitted for suits. Where do you want it?”

“Uh,” Steve says. “How about Washington Square Park?”

Pepper’s tapping continues over the line. “We can do that. Although it will attract a crowd.”

Bucky shrugs. “We’re fine with that. We’re done hiding.”

Steve takes his hand. 

They continue their lives as ever, except that they get to call each other “fiance” and “future husband”. The closer they come to the wedding, the more anxious Bucky is, but it’s an excited kind of anxious, the burgeoning feeling of being even happier bubbling up in his stomach. 

Even though they can afford to make their own, they go to a pawn shop to pick out rings. Steve finds romance in repurposing something that used to mean so much to someone, and Bucky doesn’t want to contribute to the diamond industry. 

“Should we put them on now?” Steve says, sitting on their sofa, the soft-gold bands dwarfed by his palm. 

“I think we should wait,” Bucky says, because when he understands delayed gratification, unlike Steve who jumps headfirst into any situation, consequences be damned. 

“But I want to wear it now,” Steve whines, butting his head against Bucky’s shoulder like a goat. 

“Watch it, punk.” Bucky puts his arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulls him in. “We can wait.”

They settle in to continue their marathon of Captain America-inspired films and tv series. It’s Steve’s turn to choose, and he pics Jace Gibbon’s _Sparks Fly_ , which is an alternate take on the war, where the Germans win but Steve survives the plane. How they managed to scrimp four seasons out of that idea, Bucky will never know.

Steve watches, rapt, for three hours, barely moving from his seat on the sofa. 

“I knew you’d get obsessed with this show,” Bucky says. “I’ll have to break the laptop to get you out back into the wider world.” 

“Come on,” Steve scoffs. “Give me a little credit. I know how to temper myself.”

“Seriously? When you discovered _Funnies On Parade_ you whined until I bought you fifteen blocks of soap so you could get your hands on them.”

“What?” Steve looks affronted that his honor is being besmirched. “The coupons were the only way I could get them.” Bucky gives him an unimpressed look. “Okay, that happened once.” 

“And then you got obsessed with, um.” Bucky draws a blank. “That thing. I—I can’t remember.”

Steve looks at him from the corner of Bucky’s eye. “It’s okay. You’re old now, your memory’s shot.” He aims for a joke but it falls flat. Bucky stares out the window, overcome with melancholy. He is old now. His memory is shot. “Hey, honey. I didn’t mean it.”

Bucky clears his throat. “No, I know, it’s just—I’ve been forgetting more and more lately. I used to remember everything, too much. Now when I wake screaming I don’t even know what I’m screaming about.”

Steve reaches over to grab Bucky’s knee. “Have you thought about going back to therapy?”

Bucky shrugs. “I will if you will.”

“Then I will,” Steve says. “The new year is coming up. When’s better to try new things?”

Bucky puts on a brave smile. “Thanks, Steve.” 

Unfortunately, his health continues to decline. He can’t make it down the stairs anymore or walk without a cane, and Steve won’t let him move into a retirement village out of the city, even if it is with Becca. They compromise and buy a ground-level apartment a few doors down. Bucky misses the window and the view, but he’s had to make sacrifices before. 

And then the day comes. They put on their new tuxes, tie each other’s ties, and walk the whole five minutes to the park as the sun sets where all their loved ones are waiting for them. The park is filled with flowers, and each guest wears a pomegranate pin. Reggie is the celebrant, Natasha is Bucky’s best man, and Tony keeps his mouth shut about the honeymoon, mostly because Rhodey squeezes Tony’s hand painfully every time he tries to talk. The truth is, they’ve been living their honeymoon since Steve came back. They’ve been in a state of pure bliss, because they have each other. 

When they take their places under the arch of flowers and vines, Bucky looks into Steve’s ocean eyes and says the words he’s wanted to say for 80 years. “I love you, Steven Grant Rogers. I’ve loved you for my whole life, and I’ll love you even beyond that. You said my love kept you alive, well it was the same for me. All these years I’ve wondered what my purpose was: it was to love you, to stay alive long enough to marry you.” Steve is crying openly, his face splotchy and nose running. Bucky gets choked up but he continues. “You make me so happy. My only desire is to make you happy too.”

He puts the ring on Steve’s shaking finger

It’s Steve’s turn to speak, and when he does his voice trembles. “You said to me that if it weren’t for you, there wouldn’t be a soul alive who understood me. I still believe it. You are the only person in the world who knows who I truly am, inside and out. We’ve been through so much, together and apart, but I want to spend every waking minute with you for as long as I can. And when we die, I’ll find you in the next life, just like I found you again in this one.”

They kiss in front of everyone, as the crowd that’s gathered to watch them cheers. Cameras flash as people take photos, but the reporters keep their distance. They take their first dance as husband and husband, which is mostly Bucky leaning his head on Steve’s shoulder as they sway to a live band playing “It’s Been A Long, Long Time”. 

Natasha cuts in, taking Bucky from Steve, smiling up at him, eyes shining.

“You got what you wanted then, Bucky?”

Bucky takes her face in his hands and kisses her forehead. “Yeah, Nat.” A few tears spill out of her eyes. “I feel like these past two and a half years have eclipsed everything that happened in the last 60. Everything is good now.”

“Promise?” she asks. “Because if it works out for you, then it could work out for me.”

“I promise.” He glances over at where Clint is miming an explosion to a group of kids. “What about Clint? Is it working out?”

Natasha shrugs, wiping her eyes. “It works, for the most part. Never know if we’re going to die at any given moment, though. Might be nice to have some stability.”

“It’s coming, I’m sure of it.”

Natasha leads him over to the seats where Becca is sitting in her wheelchair. She pulls down her mask to smile at him as he takes a seat next to her. He taps her wheelchair with his cane. “I’m going to need one of those soon,” he says. 

“The cane is much dandier,” she says.

It’s true that the people we love with all our hearts will always look the same to us. Despite being in her late 90s, Becca is still that fresh-faced, penny-eyed big sister that Bucky has always loved and been proud of. When she dies a month later, Bucky isn’t ready to let her go. Amy June holds his hand throughout the ceremony and then stands up to give a eulogy that he barely hears. 

Even though Steve is back, Bucky’s grief at losing Becca is too much for him to bear. It twists inside him, a hot knife carving up his insides, and he feels worse for having loved anyone at all. But Steve stays up with him on nights Bucky needs to share the memories he made with Becca, all the good parts and the bad parts about being siblings with someone so giving and so strong, someone who never gave up on him even when there wasn’t much of him left. But he knows there’s no coming back for Becca, not the way Steve did. 

Steve lies awake with him, their heads on the same pillow as Bucky gushes for the fourth time about Becca coaxing him out of the closet. 

“She was always pushing me out of my comfort zone, and I needed that.”

“You were lucky to have her,” Steve says, and Bucky nods. “But she was also lucky to have you.”

Bucky nods again. He’s so tired now. He’s old, he’s broke down, as he’s as in love as he ever was. 

He pulls Steve close, realizing as he closes his eyes that it’s the last time he will. The sun is setting on their last day together, casting its long, warm rays before it leaves them. He’s not sad to go. Time ends for everyone, and it’s his time now. He breathes deeply and slips away like a thief in the night, surrounded by the smell of chaffed wheat and sunlight.


	8. 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Thanos snap happens in 2015 instead of 2018 because reasons.
> 
> This and the last chapter (ch9) are short chapters, and ch10 is a reference list. So next chapter is the last.

Steve’s feet pound the pavement as he jogs his 22nd mile, his lungs bursting, his muscles aching. It’s been three months since Bucky died. Three harrowing months of grief so vacuous Steve thought he would never recover. Has he? Has he recovered? He’s lived in DC for a month after packing up and selling their old apartment, now sleeping in Natasha and Clint’s spare room. He gets up every day and he eats cereal for breakfast and he runs for 20 miles and he thinks about diving into the Potomac and never resurfacing. 

Today is a particularly bad day. He dreamed about Bucky last night. He dreams about Bucky every night, but last night he dreamed of being on a train and losing Bucky in one of the carriages. He ran through each carriage in an effort to find him, but when he reached the front of the train he ended up back in the last carriage as though teleported there. The drain drove through miles and miles of virgin snow, and each carriage was a different incarnation of purgatory, and he knew if he didn’t find Bucky he would be lost completely in one of them, or parts of him in all of them. But Steve couldn’t find him. 

He woke up in a puddle of sweat and pulled his phone towards him. He opened up the first bookmark in his browser and watched as he and Bucky swayed to big band music at their wedding, playing it over and over until Natasha walked in and gave him a hug.

He sees another man running towards him along the reflecting pool, and when he gets close enough he reads “Air National Guard” on the man’s chest. He runs back to Natasha’s and sits outside on the front steps of her house until he can catch his breath. Running is nothing like how it used to be; he couldn’t run at all before the serum. Flat feet and bad lungs stopped him, and no matter how many times Bucky tried to teach him to run, Steve refused on principle. “Once you start running,” he used to say, and Bucky would finish with, “they never let you stop, yeah, yeah, Stevie, I hear ya.”

But now he loves to run. It’s the most punishing thing he can do to his body and still get away with it. 

Natasha comes out of the house to sit beside him. He sees her bright pink high tops first, because he’s looking down at his hands. 

“His birthday is next week,” Natasha says, as if Steve could possibly forget. “What do you want to do for him?”

She asks the question so simply, as if Steve could possibly have an answer other than “lay down and die.” Bucky is dead, and that’s the simplest thing of all. He’s not coming back, not the way Steve did. He’s waiting for Steve to join him somewhere else. Bucky wanted Steve to live a long and happy life, even when Steve told him over and over that Bucky was his happiness, and that was that. Steve couldn’t find happiness without Bucky, and so far he hasn’t. He hasn’t seen a morning he liked, or heard a pleasant bird song, or said Bucky’s name into the waiting darkness and felt at peace. 

The only reason Steve is still alive is because Bucky would murder him if he killed himself. “The world needs you,” Bucky said to him, the day before he died. They made a contingency plan: when Bucky died, Steve would continue the work he started in 1943. Bucky knew from his work with SHIELD that Hydra wasn’t dead, and it’s Steve’s mission to wipe them out for good. Steve didn’t like thinking about it, but now it’s what he thinks about when thinking about Bucky is too much for him.

“I don’t know,” Steve says. 

“Clint wants to make that double chocolate fudge cake he liked. And we could go on a harbor cruise, like the last time you two were here.” 

“I don’t know,” Steve says again, because it’s the only answer he has in him. 

“Do you want to go to the cemetery or is that too soon?” Natasha’s voice is measured as though she’s speaking to a child. 

“I don’t know.”

“The Smithsonian has a Captain America exhibit. Might be fun to see all the things they got wrong.”

“Nat—” He’s exhausted. When hasn’t been this exhausted since he got out of the ice. He slept for two days and then he tried catching up on some things he missed and then he read Bucky’s book and then he found Bucky again, when he was sure he wouldn’t break down at the sight of him, when he was sure Bucky would want to see him again.

“Steve.” She sounds, for the first time, exhausted as well. Steve isn’t the only one who lost Bucky.

He reaches out for her hand, small, soft, manicured. “I’m sorry, Nat. I just—I need more time.”

“I know. It seems like—he’s left a hole in the world, you know? This vast space that only he could fill. He told me to look after you, thinking I’d know how. I don’t think I’ve done a very good job of that.”

Steve clears his throat. It’s a hot day, and they’re baking under the sun. The weather is against them now that Bucky’s not in the world. He’s buried in Arlington, where Steve will be buried with him, one day. “I don’t know what to do,” he confesses. 

Natasha squeezes his hand. “None of us know what to do. The best we can do is keep going, because he’d hate for us to wallow in our grief.”

Steve feels a smile tug at his lips, the first one in a long time. “He’d want us to wallow a little.”

Natasha chuckles. “Little bit.”

They go inside where Clint is cooking brunch for them, and after Steve showers, he joins Natasha on the couch to continue their _Star Wars_ marathon. Steve isn’t exactly a fan of it, but it’s better than deciding for himself what to do with his time. After waking up almost a century in the future, nothing in fiction can compare.

They eat, watch the movies, Steve tries not to think too hard about Bucky, and fails.

* * *

In Steve’s dream, he touches Bucky’s lips and they turn cold. He kisses Bucky’s lips and he dissolves into ashes that blow away in the wind. There is nothing of Bucky left except the commemorative headstone in Arlington Cemetery.

* * *

Peggy is as beautiful as ever. No matter how much bad blood was spilled between her and Bucky, Steve still owes so much of himself and his journey to her. If it wasn’t for Peggy and Howard, he never would have been able to save Bucky. And she did deliver his letters, like he asked her to.

“You look upset,” Peggy says, touching Steve’s chin. “Anything I can help with?”

“You’ve done enough.” He doesn’t like seeing her when he’s upset, or at least looking like he’s upset when he sees her, but she always makes him feel better. Howard is gone, Phillips, the Howlies—Bucky. Peggy is the only person left from his time. “I wanted to talk to you about SHIELD.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“I’m thinking of—joining. Doing my part. Helping the world.”

Her eyes soften as she smiles. “Haven’t you done enough as well?”

He shrugs. “I could always do more. It’s not really about whether I have or haven’t, it’s more about how much I owe you, Howard and Dr Erskine.”

“Oh, darling, that debt has long since been paid.” She clutches his hands in her own, brittle-boned but unyielding. 

“How much I owe the world then. Just because there isn’t a war in our own county doesn’t mean there aren’t wars in others. I watch the news and it’s terrible, Pegs. Political instability, terrorism, beheadings, war crimes. I want to help.”

Her smile deepens. “The world is yours to make of it what you will, Steve. If you want to dive back into that muck, then there’s no way I can stop you, is there?”

He returns her smile, feeling his eyes crinkle. “Nope.” He wonders if it could have worked out between them, if he didn’t have Bucky. He did feel what could have been love for her, if they had a chance, but he knows that he’d rather spend a thousand lifetimes with Bucky than with anyone else. Now that he’s gone, it’s nice to have a friend who can almost understand him. “I’m sorry you weren’t at our wedding.”

Peggy turns her head away, silver hair bunching against the pillow. “I’m sorry too. Not for that, but for everything I did to James. I feel as though I took half his life away by not telling him what you told me before you—well. He would have read the letters sooner. He wouldn’t have been in so much pain.”

“I know,” Steve says, “His life would have been a lot different if he read those letters. But he didn’t regret any of it. He was able to have a life with Vlad, and to travel, and to help build SHIELD from the ground up. He was able to forge a life for himself in New York, with friends and a job he loved. He gave back to the community. He got where he wanted to get in the end.” 

Peggy’s eyes slip shut as he talks, and that’s his cue to leave her for the night. She can only handle so much social interaction now before she gets tired and upset, so he leaves her with a kiss on the cheek as she falls asleep.

* * *

He finds Bucky in the snow, buried under layers and layers of it. He digs and digs and digs until he finds Bucky’s hand, his fingers curled and frozen. Steve breathes on them to warm them up until they turn back to his rosy pink and wiggle. Steve hauls him out of the snow with one hand to find him alive and whole, 24-years-old and grinning brightly. 

“I knew you’d find me,” he says, his teeth chattering. 

The wind howls and cuts through Steve’s layers, so he pulls Bucky close to him. He’s not dressed for winter and Steve knows if they stay here much longer Bucky will freeze to death, so Steve takes off his own coat and puts it on Bucky, and runs his hands up and down Bucky’s chest and side under his shirt to warm him up. 

“We need to get out of here,” Steve says, shouting to be heard.

“Wait.” Even though it’s a husky whisper, Steve can hear him clearly. Bucky pulls him close and kisses him until they’re both breathless and panting. Bucky pushes him down into the snow and climbs over him, still kissing him as they rut against each other. “I love you so much,” Bucky says, gasping it into Steve’s mouth. “I would burn the world down for you.”

“I know, I know,” Steve says, in between kissing Bucky’s face, chin dimple, cheeks, forehead, hands, chest—anywhere he can. Bucky’s skin is still frozen, stinging Steve’s lips. He wakes up hard and aching, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

* * *

Steve waits until Natasha’s making herself coffee before he corners her. “I want to come work for SHIELD again.”

She turns the coffee machine on and gets her cup ready before she turns around to pin him with a look. “Steve, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“I can’t just sit around doing nothing.” He’s been thinking about it over the last month and his conviction for doing right by the world and doing right by Bucky has overcome any other desire he has to live a normal life. 

Natasha continues staring at him. “Grieving isn’t doing nothing. It’s healing.”

“Yeah, but that can’t be all I’m doing. I need to do what’s right. You’re helping people, and that’s what I was built for.”

“I wouldn’t say helping people is my number one priority,” she says, under her breath, turning back to the coffee machine.

Steve leans against the kitchen counter, watching her as she grabs the milk from the fridge. “What is, then?”

She shrugs. “Bringing down totalitarian regimes is really doing it for me. I like following orders, and Fury’s orders are to go where he wants me to.”

“That’s what I’m good at, too,” Steve says, but Natasha laughs.

“Your first mission directly defied orders, Steve.” She has a twinkle in her eye when she looks up at him, taking a sip of coffee. “From what the Smithsonian tells me, you never once followed an order.”

Steve shrugs. “Okay, fine. I just want to help. I need something to do, and this body was built for more than fun runs and pride marches. I want to help stabilize the world on a global scale. I can do that. Help me do that,” he pleads.

Natasha takes a breath. She’s rarely strung along by emotions and she’s put up with his wallowing for two months, but he’s desperate now, desperate to change, to help, to do what needs doing. 

She sighs. “Fine. I’ll talk to Fury. But if you die on my watch I’ll never forgive you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says.

* * *

He wades through a field of flowers with a thousand scents kicked up by his feet. The flowers sing to him as he touches them, springing back into the direction he needs to go. The singing sounds like 1930s rock and roll played through a telephone line. He needs to listen to find out where he’s going, but he also needs to trust his senses and the flowers around him to end up where he should.

He walks for days and weeks until his shoes fall off, through the never-ending flower field as the sun bears down, but eventually, he gets there. A stream, more flowers, a babbling brook that says Steve’s name, and Bucky: lying face up in the water, flowers in his long hair. 

Steve’s breath catches in his throat at the sight. Bucky is so beautiful, his face shifting between 17, 26, 93, and all at once. His hair floats like a halo around his head, framing the beauty of his face, his sharp jaw, his cheekbones, the softness under his chin. His eyes flutter open and he looks over with a smile.

“Steve,” he says, a sigh. 

“Hey, Buck.” Steve’s happiness brims over. He wades into the water until he gets to Bucky. He’s waist-deep in it but he doesn’t care; it’s warm and inviting, and it makes his skin tingle. Bucky continues to float, the water sloshing him until Steve stops. He touches Bucky’s hands and they’re warm. 

“Have you found your purpose yet?” Bucky’s eyes are the bluest gray, a roiling ocean in the night, a swallow’s tail. 

“My purpose was you. There’s nothing else for me now.”

“Do you really think I’d leave you? I’m always with you.” He puts his hand on Steve’s chest, over his heart as it _thump-thumps_ away. “I’ll never leave you, Stevie, as long as you keep my memory alive.” 

Steve leans down to kiss him and Bucky kisses back, his lips tasting of pomegranates. He pulls one out of his mouth and feeds it to Steve, who bites into it with relish, the juice dripping down his chin. He eats the whole thing, flesh, seeds, and all, while Bucky watches with laugher in his eyes, singing a song that Steve can’t place and touching his face with his soft hands. 

“I miss you,” Steve says. “God, I miss you so much, Buck. Why did you leave me?”

Bucky’s gaze is soft, his fingers trailing through the juice on Steve’s chin. He licks them clean and kisses Steve again. “It was my time. You have to let me go, Stevie. Will you do that for me?”

Steve swallows through the tightness in his throat. “I can’t,” he says. “I can’t do that. You’re my life. You’re the thing that makes me whole. Without you, I’m not alive.”

Bucky moves until he’s standing in the water, his arms over Steve’s shoulders, their foreheads pressed together. “You’re not alone. You hear me? I’m always here with you. So knock it off and keep living.”

“If I have to keep living without you—I don’t know how long the serum is going to last. Could be centuries. I just want to be with you again.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, stepping back. The water starts to bubble around him and a whirlpool forms, thrashing, and twisting. Steve tries to step forward but he’s thrown backward onto the shore. 

“Buck!” he calls out, as he sinks down. “Wait for me! I’ll come for you!” But Bucky is already sinking, down, down, into the depths below.

* * *

He sees the man again two more times before he makes his move. He’s not sure why he does it; he has friends—Natasha and Clint, and he sees Peggy when he can—but there’s something about this man—Sam, he learns—that he wants. Even after living with her, Natasha is still secrets wrapped in secrets, Clint is a great guy but they’ve never really connected on a friend-to-friend level, and Peggy forgets more than she remembers. It’s nice to have someone to talk to who gets the military lifestyle but is wise enough to remove himself from it.

The morning he introduces himself is also the morning of his first mission. Hostages on a pirate ship, Batroc, intel. He’s mad at Natasha, because after all this time he thought he knew where her loyalties lie, but he realizes as they crash through the window as the grenade goes off behind them that her loyalty is to Fury, and not him. 

But then three Winter Soldiers turn up on the streets of DC, and all hell breaks loose. Steve can’t save them; that’s what hurts. He puts a bullet in each of their heads and calls it a bad day. They take down the helicarriers, and spill all of SHIELD and Hydra’s secrets. Natasha disappears into the wind, and Sam signs up to help him take down anything that’s left. It’s an interesting three days.

* * *

They track Hydra across the earth three times over. In Brazil, they take down a ring of wannabe hackers who are funneling money into the pockets of warlords throughout the world. Steve and Sam incapacitate them, steal their data, and wait for the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência to show up. Then they run again.

In Brussels, an elite death squad is gearing up to cause unrest in Saudi Arabia. Steve gets a broken arm. Sam gets a nasty scar across his forehead and almost loses an eye. Steve jokes that the scar looks like he got forehead reduction surgery. 

Sam kisses him on a moonlit street in Serville. Steve kisses back.

“I don’t want to replace him,” Sam says, a minute later. “There’s nothing I could do that can take him away from you, just like you with Riley. We each have our own loves to bear.”

“I know,” Steve says. He gently traces the scar with his fingers. It’s healing well, clean, no infection. “When he died—it left a hole in my heart, a hole I fell into for a while. But then this mission gave me purpose again, and you helped with that. You help with my healing every day. The hole is still there, but I can manage it now.”

They find their way back to a hotel and fall into a rhythmic sleep with their hands and knees grazing.

* * *

Steve shouldn’t be surprised when, the next year, half the people in the world are turned to ash, because nothing should surprise him anymore. But it hurts—it hurts to lose Sam, after knowing him for only a short amount of time, after loving him for less. He still has Natasha and Clint, and they try and clean up the world as best they can.

Steve’s head is so full of grief and regret at this point it’s hard to think of anything else, but when he sees Nat, struggling to make it through the day as she is, he knows he has to be better and do better for her. So he makes her spaghetti bolognese with pickles, the way she likes it, while she takes a much-needed nap. 

Clint swings by to see Steve while he’s here, so Steve serves him up a plate too. 

“How come you haven’t been around much?” Steve asks. He doesn’t mean to sound accusatory, but Natasha hasn’t been doing well. 

“Actually,” Clint says, through a mouthful of pasta. “Nat and I broke up. A while ago. It’s kind of hard for me to see her.”

Steve washes his hands in the sink, trying to think of something to say that won’t start a fight. “You should be here, though. She’s struggling enough. She lives here by herself. She needs people around her.”

“Listen, I don’t know if you’ve ever been through a breakup with the love of your life, but it’s not easy on anyone.” Clint continues eating as though his words don’t sting. 

Steve sighs. He dries his hands on the dishtowel that’s hung over his shoulder and leans back against the sink. “It’s not fair that she’s all by herself with the weight of the world on her shoulders.”

“Hey, man,” Clint says, sounding, for the first time, pissed off. “Why don’t you move in here with her? That way you can make sure she’s okay instead of telling everyone else to do it.”

His chair legs scrape against the floor as he pushes back, leaving his half-eaten plate of spaghetti bolognese. He picks up his bow and disappears in a huff, and Steve is left alone with his disgust at himself circling the whirlpool of his mind. Clint is right, he needs to be here, because Natasha has been keeping everyone else afloat and there’s no one helping her.

He brings a plate into her room and wakes her gently with a hand on her shoulder. She yawns and sits up, rubbing her eyes until they un-gunk; she’s been crying in her sleep. “Thanks, Steve.” Her nose is red and her eyes are underlined with shadows. She looks exhausted, and Steve puts his arm around her shoulders as she eats, kissing the top of her head.

When she’s done, she lets out a burp with her hand on her chest. “That was good. Miserable no more.”

“Thanks. I learned how to take care of people from Bucky, actually.”

She smiles up at him. “It’s so nice to hear you talk about him. All that therapy did you some good.”

Steve ducks his head. “It’s all thanks to him. These past few years haven’t been easy, and it’s been a way to keep connecting to him. He’d want me to move on, but I haven’t yet.”

Natasha nods. “I still think about him all the time. He changed my life. I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him.”

“Me either,” Steve agrees. “I think I would have died a long time ago. Properly died, this time.”

Natasha makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Just can’t seem to keep you down, huh?”

“Nope.”

Her eyes shine in the soft lamplight, her hair a brilliant red and gold. He’s liked every one of her hairstyles over the last 9 years, but he still has a soft spot for her short hair. He takes the strand that falls over her face and tucks it behind her ear. She catches his hand and tangles their fingers together. 

He thought, at first, that he was using Sam to get over Bucky, and then he realized that the way he loves Sam is separate from the way he loves Bucky, because they’re two different people, and his love for them is different. And it’s the same with Nat. He loves her, deeply and unforgettably.

They move together at the same time, their lips touching softly until Natasha deepens the kiss. 

“Is this a bad idea?” she asks when she breaks away. She doesn’t go far; Steve’s arm keeps her close. 

“Ask me tomorrow,” Steve says, smiling.

* * *

Bucky is sitting on top of a mountain. The mountain looms in front of him, a sleeping goliath, the path up rocky and treacherous. It takes Steve years to travel up there, and by the time he does Bucky has become part of the mountain and can’t be moved, his limbs sinking beneath the earth. His skin is sand-colored and rough when Steve touches his face.

“You haven’t let me go.” Bucky sounds annoyed.

“Never,” Steve says. 

Anger flashes in Bucky’s eyes. “Stubborn headass.”

“Stop,” Steve pleads. “Stop asking me to give you up. It’s not going to happen.”

“You realize I’m your unconscious, right? It’s you who wants to give me up.”

Steve stomps his foot like a petulant child. “Bucky, I have told you again and again—”

“Steve,” Bucky says, calmly, and it quietens all of Steve’s aggressiveness. “It’s time.”

“No,” Steve says, and the dream dissolves.

* * *

Tomorrow comes, and with it Scott Lang. He has a plan that Steve would call reckless and absurd, but it’s the last lifeline Steve has to get Sam back, to get the world back. 

Tony is an asshole about it, as he is with most things. Steve hasn’t heard from him since he disappeared to live his life with Pepper, and he can’t begrudge him that. Steve disappeared to live his life with Bucky, and they all let him. It’s good to see Tony, but more than that it’s a means to an end. He was a big part of Bucky’s life too, even if he and Steve don’t get along because of Tony’s brash personality. So when he comes up with a way to get the stones, Steve listens. 

“Are you with me on this, Cap?” Tony asks. “I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the brawn.”

Steve nods, smiling a little. “We can do this. We can bring them back.”

In 1970, Tony gets the cube, and Steve, in an effort to escape suspicion, slips into an empty room. He glances around, but there’s really nothing there, except—there’s a window, with slatted blinds, and through it, he can see—

His heart pounds as he looks at both of them. Peggy, with her curled hair and red lips, and—his chest hurts so bad, his heart aching, his stomach in knots—Bucky, staring at a picture of Steve on Peggy’s desk. Bucky whips around and Steve ducks, crawling to the door to get the hell out of there. 

They make it. They save the world, bring everyone back, and Tony dies a hero’s death, the death he deserves. Everyone except for Natasha. 

Tony’s funeral is tasteful, and Sam stays by Steve’s side the whole time. 

While Bruce fires up the portal again, Steve and Sam sit on the bench overlooking the water. It’s a calm, warm day, nothing like the cold Steve feels at the things he’s seen over the last six years. Nothing like the emptiness that has lived inside him ever since Bucky died. 

“I saw him,” Steve chokes out. “When we went back for the Pym Particles I saw Bucky.”

Sam grasps Steve’s hand and laces their fingers together. “You know what you have to do, Steve.”

Steve glances over at him. Sam smiles, and there’s no hurt underneath it, only pride and love. Sam is a good friend, a good partner, and he trusts Steve with his life. He has thrown himself into one dangerous situation after another for Steve, because he is a good man. And Steve is repaying him with this.

“Sam, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just do what you have to do.”

Sam leans forward and Steve meets him in a kiss that is soft and sweet, a much better goodbye than anything Steve could say.

Bruce directs Steve to the middle of the platform. “Are you ready for this, Steve?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, sighing happily. He’s ready.

* * *

It’s snowing when Steve gets there, a blanket of it covering the ground, his footsteps marring the pureness of it. He thinks of his dreams, of pulling Bucky out of the snow and warming him up with his breath, breathing life back into him the way Bucky gave him life. His pulse ratchets under his skin, his heart beating hard as a sweet voice sings, “I’ll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.”

His sight carries across the yard, over the garden beds, up the stairs where Bucky is sitting in a rocking chair, rugged up in a coat, his hair at his shoulders, looking like a dream. His eyes widen as he takes one look at Steve, and Steve knows then, as he’s always known, that it was worth it. All of it was worth it, just for a chance to say the words again.


	9. 1945

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can't find a canon happy ending for your favourite pairing, fan-made is fine.

“Say it again.” Bucky’s gaze is mischievous and inviting, his blue eyes blazing in the lamplight.

“I love you,” Steve says, kissing it into Bucky’s collarbone. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” He travels down further, kissing Bucky’s sternum, where Steve’s head has rested so often. “There’s no me without you.” His nipples, the little pink points of them. “You were the beginning and end of me.” His ribs, that case and hold a heart as big as the world. “There is no end of the line for me.” His belly button, that Steve wants to be swallowed by. “You gave me life.”

Bucky makes little sighing noises each time Steve’s lips connect with his skin, noises Steve hasn’t heard in six years. His belly, round and soft from good food, is the perfect place for Steve’s cheek to lay as Bucky brushes his fingers through Steve’s long hair.

“You’re really from the future, huh?”

“Wouldn’t you believe it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t except for the spacesuit and this book that I apparently wrote.” 

He picks it up again, thumbing through the pages until he gets to a passage he likes. “‘Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were never far from each other’s sight. When Steve was getting the snot kicked out of him in some alley, Bucky was there to back him up. Even if he wasn’t there when the fight started, Bucky seemed to have a sixth sense about these things, and he arrived in time to finish it. Inevitably, Steve would need his wounds patched up, and Bucky, having learned from Sarah, would be the one to do it. Truth be told, he wanted to do it. He couldn’t stand anyone else’s hands on Steve, touching Steve with the gentleness that he could. No one else knew that Steve was precious and must be handled carefully. No one else would think to.’”

He tosses the book aside and yawns. “What a load of crap. I really wrote that?”

Steve laughs. “Yeah, you did, jerk. And you meant every word, so don’t lie, because you told me so yourself.”

“Well, considering that version of me hasn’t happened yet, I’m going to plead the fifth.”

Steve snorts. “Bucky Barnes, sticking his nose out of my business? Well, I never.”

Bucky reaches down and sticks his fingers into Steve’s armpit. “If you know what’s good for you punk, you’ll—”

Steve laughs and wriggles as Bucky attacks him, letting it go on before he traps Bucky’s hand and pushes it back above his head. Bucky’s eyes go wide and his breathing shortens. He’s so pliant and easy underneath Steve, and Steve couldn’t do this with the Bucky before, in his own time—the older version of Bucky who once said, “If we have sex now, I’ll break a fuckin’ hip.” Steve reaches down with one hand to clasp Bucky’s hip to feel the meat and bone of him, strong, sturdy, and willing. 

“We still need to rescue Nat and kill Zola.”

“Not sure if you realize this Steve, but I’m kind of out of the game. And from what you told me about the last five years, so are you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve says, with absolute certainty, “we can make our own future. You taught me that.”

“Just fulla wisdom, aren’t I?” Bucky smiles and sighs, letting his body sag into the bed, and Steve, pressed against him, sags too. “Explain this to me again. You went back in time, but you won’t be able to end up there?”

“Right,” Steve says, letting go of Bucky’s arm to trace his eyebrows. “Because Thanos went forward in time to get us, so there’s no snap. And the only way we were able to go back to being in the future is because the machine Bruce made was calibrated to our suits. So right now, if we were to live out our lives, there would be no snap.”

Bucky sighs. “That’s some serious bullshit you just told me. Really, top of the line science fiction mumbo gumbo.”

“It’s true!”

“Sure, Stevie.” 

“And the best part is,” Steve says, “people in the future loved us. We could be open about our love. We could walk down the street holding hands, and kiss under the streetlamps. We got married in a park.”

Bucky looks up at him, and the sheer, naked love in them floors Steve all over again. “Let’s not wait 70 years,” Bucky says. He cranes his head up to kiss Steve again, not soft and sweet like he did in 2011, but hard and wanting. Steve was wrong; he doesn’t need Bucky to be whole, because he’s not broken. There’s nothing missing from him. It’s so nice to kiss him, Steve thinks, and to be kissed by him. He’s never wanted anything more. 

They break apart and Steve pushes his face into Bucky’s neck, into the hollow behind his ear where his scent lies—the truest scent of him, where he forgets to wash because Sister Mary Catherine’s words never perforated his skull. He kisses the mole there and Bucky offers his body up like a lamb on the altar. Steve has never wanted to consume him more or be consumed by him. All the pretense Steve built up over the years, telling himself that Bucky doesn’t want him, melts away when he feels Bucky’s hand brush over his back, so lightly that if Steve weren’t so attuned to him he wouldn’t feel it. They are alone, and they are in love, and not even death can stop them from being together.

# Letters traded back and forth during the war

1.  
_Hey Buck, It’s only been a couple of weeks since you left but Dugan won’t stop yapping about how quiet it is now. Seems to me a little bit ironic. He misses you, we all do, and we hope you’re sharp now. Gabe orders a shot for you every time we go out for a drink, but Dum Dum says he should make it four, considering what you used to put away. I ain’t forgot about you either. Feels weird not having someone around to nag me all the time. Feels weirder not having someone around to air my wet socks on the fire escape._

_Ain’t the same out here without you. Nights are a little bit colder, the woods a little scarier, the Nazis a little meaner. Send us some of your jokes every now and then, would you? There’s a scary lack of humor out here, much as Dum Dum tries. You haven’t missed much, unless you’re still doing drills in our apartment. Keep it down unless you want Mrs O'Flaherty marching up the stairs and pulling your ear again._

_I gotta get back to it. Get some sleep, okay? You deserve it._  
_Always, Steve_

2.  
_Hey Buck,_

_Me again. Can’t seem to get rid of me, can ya? I know, I know, I stick around like a bedsore. Can’t say I miss those. All those winters I spent in hospital beds, well, I don’t miss those either. Although it’s so quiet out here some nights I almost miss the sound of my own wheezing. Stupid thing to miss. You’re the only person I know now who remembers me from that time. Isn’t that strange? Some days I wake up thinking I’m small again, days like when it’s freezing out and we wake up with a layer of sleet over us cause we’re sleeping out under the stars or in a foxhole. I wake up and I think, “Bucky will be so mad that I kicked off the covers and woke up with a cold.” But then I wake up and you’re not here. Sometimes I think I’ll never see you again, but then you probably thought the same of me, right? That I might die in Brooklyn without you. Well, I think I did. I think I died and was born again, but right this time. I know you’d flip your wig if I said this to your face, so I’m glad we got a way of saying this stuff. Keep sending your letters, pal, and I’ll keep writing back._

_Always, Steve_

_P.S. Don’t think I forgot about your birthday. The present isn’t much, I know, but you’ve been letting me draw you pictures for 12 years now, so I think you’ll forgive me._

3.  
_Steve_

_You’re right about me flipping my wig. You’re lucky I only got one hand to punch you with because that shit ain’t funny, pal. You’re lucky I’m not over there right now with my Colt in hand because I’d knock you off._

_Don’t talk like that okay? Just come home. In one piece or missing a few, it doesn’t matter. Just come home._

4.  
_Can I tell you a secret, Buck? Well, tough shit, I’m going to anyway. We spend a lot of time together, me and the guys. We run drills with the infantry, we take orders, we eat together at the mess, but the truth is, no matter how much time I spend with other guys, it’s lonely as hell. It’s hard not to think about living in our shitty apartment in Cobble Hill where we spent most of our time together. It’s hard not to think about you now, not being here with me when we’ve been with each other most of our lives. It cut me deep when you went off to basic, because it was the first time since we moved in together that I didn’t see your face every night. You’d always come home so excited from being out doing god knows what, something new and shiny in your hands to show me, like a couple of pomegranates you picked up at the market, or a new type of pencil that you bought for me. The guys round here might look up to me, but they don’t have what you got. That excitement, I mean. Like I was the only person in the world you cared about. You have Becca and Alice and Tommy and your parents, but you always made me feel special. Out of all the dames you courted and all the fellas you befriended, you always came home to me. Guess I never thanked you for that. But I guess maybe I don’t need to. It’s lonely as hell without you here, is what I’m trying to say. The world’s a big place, I’m realising that now, but your letters make it seem smaller. Like maybe we’re not an ocean apart, but just next door. So keep writing, and I will too. PS I’m sending some pictures this time so you don’t forget what I look like. The official photographer is always coming around. He could teach you a thing or two about cameras, or maybe you already know everything, and you could teach him._

5.  
_Did I tell you I met Josephine Baker? I met Charles de Gaulle too, but he was less impressive. Jospehine is—wow, Buck. I can’t even describe her. An incredible woman. She performed for us, can you believe? Really raised the morale of the camp. I was too shy to introduce myself, but she came up to me, told me she’d heard of me. Can you believe that? Do you remember those nights we’d sit in your living room after your parents had gone to bed, listening to Josephine and James P. Johnson and Sydney Bechet and Louis Armstrong? Josephine says she left America for a lot of reasons, but I think I know one of them. It’s fucked up that if she went back to America she wouldn’t have the same rights as us. Like Gabe and Jim. You know? Makes me really fucking mad. The Tuskegee Airmen are braver than anyone else in the service, and they’ve never lost a bomber. Would you want to go to one of those marches with me? I think having a couple of war vets would do some good. We could help, you know? I could do something useful with what Dr Erskine gave me. What’s the point in having this serum, in being Captain America, if I don’t do anything with it?_

6.  
_Hey, Buck_

_Goddamnit, if I’d have known sooner. I didn’t write to talk about this but it’s all I can think about now. I shouldn’t put this on you. I shouldn’t put this on myself, I know that, but if I’d have known there’s no way I would’ve let you get tortured and fucking experimented on. I can’t stand all this guilt in me, thinking about what you went through, even knowing you’re fine at home, eating the vegetables you grow in your garden. I just can’t stand it. I wanna be there with you, you gotta know that. I’ll win this fucking war, nazis be damned, I’ll kill them all just to come back home and see your face again. Save some of those vegetables for me. I’ll be home before you know it._

_Always, Steve_

7.  
_You’re whistlin Dixie if you think I’m going to let you feel guilty over me. Don’t, okay? Just don’t. If I had a penny for every time I felt guilty that you were sick and I was healthy—I’d have a lotta fuckin money, pal, let me tell you. Tell me something good about what you’re doing instead. Dum Dum tell you about the time he got put away for a couple nights in Chelsea for a drunk and disorderly? Or Gabe getting the address of his cousin’s wedding wrong, turning up at a bat mitzvah instead? Maybe I’m airing all their dirty laundry. Serves the fuckers right for telling me in the first place._

_I know the nights are lonely as hell, you don’t gotta tell me. Nights here ain’t so great, neither. Sure, I got a roof over my head and no one shooting at me, but it’s just not the same without ragging you about leaving your socks on the fire escape. I know the guys are in good hands with you. They’re dynamite, and I’m not surprised you picked them. If anyone’s gonna have your back it’s them, and if anyone’s gonna have their back it’s you. But just fucking win the war and come home already._

8.  
_We miss you, Stevie. We’ve got a full refrigerator worth of food, so come on through and help us eat it. My parents aren’t even going to drag us to church, either, because I left them back in NY. HA. Ha ha ha. Okay, punk. Seriously though win the war already and get your ass to Indiana._

9.  
_I sure as hell don’t miss hangovers, especially not with that toilet bowl whiskey you used to get for us. You never told me where you got it from, and I reckon you’ll take that secret to the grave. I’ll just chalk it up to one of life’s little mysteries. New Year’s was a gas. Dernier got uproariously drunk of course, but the others weren’t far behind. They needed the morale booster. It wears on them, I know it does. No matter how many wins we have, it’s hard as hell being out here, out in the shit and mud of a battlefield, waiting for someone or something to drop from the skies and end it all. The dead lie where they fall, and they rot or they get eaten, and when it gets quiet enough I swear I can hear them talk to me. Even I can die, we all know that. I don’t tell you about the near misses, the almosts, because I know how it would eat you up inside not being able to save me like you used to. Don’t pretend like it doesn’t work that way, Buck, because we both know the truth. I don’t need saving anymore. And if I go to my death here, out here where the loneliness suffocates and the dead whisper, then I go to my grave having paid you back. If nothing else, you’re alive, and everything I do is worth it for that._

10.  
_No one knows who I am here_ , Bucky writes, taking long pauses to gather his thoughts. _No one knows who I am anywhere. I’m not James Buchanan Barnes, Steve Rogers’s Best Friend. I’m just some guy with a camera. You talked about no one knowing you before—well, no one knows me now. I can walk around without being yoked to your star. It has its advantages, believe it or not. It’s not like any soldiers treated me any different when they knew you stormed that factory for me, but—I don’t know. I guess it makes me feel special that you’re the only one. I’m just yours. I always have been. And you’re my sun. The Russians call it “solnyshko,” little sun. And maybe one day I’ll have the guts to tell you these things instead of writing them in a letter I’ll never send. But who knows? Maybe we’ll both die young and it won’t matter. They’ll print your name in books, and history will forget me. I’m fine with it. Really, I promise. I’m fine with it all._

# Steve’s Love letters

1.

_—my ma always used to say that we were trouble, but I was the one getting us into it and you were the one getting us out of it. What a pair we made, huh, Buck? If those kids could see us now, an ocean apart and hell between us, they’d just about shit themselves. Nothing came between us then, and like hell it’s going to come between us now. I’ll make my way back to you, I swear I—_

2.

_You told me once you wanted to buy a pomegranate tree and a backyard to put it in, where we could carve our initials into it so that in generations’ time the people living there would know who we were. So many seasons I spent watching you devour them like a king, but when I ate them I could never figure out just what was so special. But you’d share them with me, and I’d eat them, because sometimes love is carving your name into the bark of a tree, and other times it’s sharing a piece of fruit on a fire escape while the sun sets on a September afternoon. The sunlight turned your hair amber and I’d itch for the right pencil to shade it on a scrap of paper. God I was happy. I was so happy._

3.

_You were always trying to feed me, I remember that so clearly. Of course with the serum I remember pretty much everything, but that stands out to me most. On cold nights I think about your godawful excuse for cooking, always trying to cram mash potatoes in my mouth, your adventures with spices that almost burned the house down several times. What I wouldn’t give for some of that right now. I know Becca’s fattening you up, and she should, because I know what it’s like to be hungry down to the bones of you. But I think about you with a different kind of hunger, the kind that started when I was 12 and you were 13 and I realized what it meant to want someone in a way other than friends. It was a horrible kind of feeling, a no-good, can’t take it back now kind of feeling that I knew I’d be stuck with for the rest of my miserable life, and sometimes I thought it was better for me to die than never get that feeling back from you. Sometimes I thought you had that feeling too. I was 13 years old when my balls dropped and I got hair in uncomfortable places and I was all kinds of sweaty just being near you, but you still looked at me like I was the only thing worth looking at, and sometimes I’d think, he loves me, I know he does, he loves me in that no good way I love him. But I never said anything, I never said it then, and I’m too much of a coward to send these letters now, but I promise you once I get home to you I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything._

4.

_It hurts me to know that people like us aren’t worth shit. In a world where I can defy the army and come out with a couple of medals, I know I’d be discharged all the same for telling them I love a fella. Dishonorably discharged, institutionalized, hell, thrown into one of those camps that Hitler’s got cooking up. Maybe if we were born in another time I could walk tall and say, this is me, this is who I am, and you know what? Fuck that. Fuck that right to hell. I’m saying it now, and when we win the war and I get to come home to your smiling face, I’ll stand up in the street and say it. This is who I am. This is me. And the world will love me for it or they won’t, I just don’t care, because I know there are others like me who will stand up too. And we’ll win that war too. Maybe we’ll grow old enough to know that people don’t gotta fight to be seen and to love each other. Maybe we can find some people like us, like Sappho and Josephine Baker and Achilles and Patroclus. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs once said “I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt.” Do you think he was talking about Hydra, or the hydra that is the way society feels about people like us? I think it’s both. What I’m learning is that they’ve both been around a lot longer than we think they have. Freud thinks that what we have is a neurosis, and what women have is a mental illness, and I think that’s bullshit of the highest fucking order. What I feel for you, that ain’t something that’s gonna damn me to hell. That ain’t something I need to apologize for, and it ain’t something I’m gonna apologize for. It completes me. My love for you is the truest and more pure force in the world, even when it ain’t so pure, even when I think of holding you down and making you moan my name, even when I wanna lick every inch of you until you quake so bad the earth quakes with you. It’s the best thing I have to give, and if you don’t want it, that’s fine, but I have it anyway, and it’s worth more than my life. This love, it’s gonna be the death of me, but I’ll die happy, one way or another._

5.

 _I wish I could give you the gift of forever, and be with you in that forever. It’s selfish of me to want that, knowing you have your own life, but I don’t want nothing from you. I don’t want a damn thing, I just want to be by your side_

6.

 __The bodies drop like pinecones out here and sometimes the nights are so silent I swear I’ve got my bad ear back. I lie awake at night imagining you here with me, you whole and me less damaged from the war, from you leaving me, and I imagine your arms around me again like we used to sleep when we were younger, probably not young enough to call ourselves innocent. God, I ached for you then. Every night we slept in the same bed I wanted to touch you, I wanted to taste the sounds you make—and I’m sorry for that. Sorry for being selfish, sorry for being pissy and jealous of all the dames who hung off your arm, sorry for taking up the time you could have been spending getting your life on track if you didn’t have someone like me dragging you down. Well now the world thinks I’m some big hero, but I’d trade all the medals and accolades and comic books about me just to see you again, smiling down at me like you used to with that cocky smirk. They can lock me up, I don’t care, Buck, just as long as I get to see that smile. I can break out anyhow. I’m Captain America, after all.

7.

_Your love inside me isn’t enough; it’s your blood I want, too_

8.

_The only thing keeping me alive out here is the thought of seeing you again. That and Morita’s needle skills._

9.

_You are the other half of me. My heart beats for both of us, and it’s strong now, it beats harder, slower, more regular. You should hear it. I know you’d try, putting your head on my chest when you thought I was asleep, pressing your nimble fingers to my pulse. Sometimes that was the only way I knew I was real, because you were there to prove I was. You gave me life. Do you know that? You gave me life. And everything I’ve done with that life, I owe to you. For the first two of the five days it took to march across the land, you were sweating out a fever while I marched front and center, popping my head into the tank every hour to make sure you were okay. You couldn’t see it, your eyes shut so tight against the light when the hatch opened, but I practically glowed every time I found you still breathing. It would keep me going for the next hour until the worry crept in again and I had to check. Every time I saw you, it was like being born anew, like a gift from God himself, even though God doesn’t work like that. I don’t know if I even believe in God, but I thanked my lucky stars that you were still alive after what they’d done to you. I could barely breathe between the anger and the relief I felt just touching your face. I wanted to set the world on fire. I wanted to burn every motherfucker whoever came near you, and I knew that kind of anger would eat me up, and that if you died I would make sure they paid for it, and then I’d follow you into the next life. There’s no me without you, do you get that? You were the beginning of me, and you’ll be the end of me too. There is no end of the line for me. I’ll follow you wherever you go._

10.

 _You said this to me one time, and I’ll remember it until the day I die: “If it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be a soul alive who understands you.” I knew it then, and I know it now, it’s true. All those covers of me in comic books, all those newspaper clippings you’re collecting just to embarrass me, they can’t cut to the truth the way you always could with that sharp wit and wicked tongue. I simply lost my senses. I want you on me, I want you so much it scares me. I want you between my teeth, to bite down on the meat of you, to savor your taste. I want to eat you alive, to feel your cherry blossom leaves fall on my skin. I’ll take this carnal sin with me wherever I go, I’ll carry it until the ends of the earth if I have to, until I find you again, because it lives in me but it’s yours, and I’m yours too._  
Always, Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest thing I've ever written! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving me a comment, I really appreciate them. I'm super burnt out now (thanks to this fic and the last year) so don't expect anything from me for a while, and also I've fallen tit-first back into Supernatural, a hell of my own making, so this is likely going to be my last SteveBuckie fic. A hell of a ride, tbh.


	10. Reference List

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The resources I consulted writing this fic. I thought it would be cool if I shared them, so that other people can have these resources too!

** Links **

[The Hour For Loving ](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/77480-in-the-ill-judged-execution-of-the-well-judged-plan-of-things) — Tess Of The D’Ubervilles 

[‘Til The End of the Timeline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10878852/chapters/24170622)

[Bucky’s dog tags](https://twitter.com/falconsoldiertv/status/1191535259944308736)

[Shelbyville, Indiana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelbyville,_Indiana)

[John My Beloved](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-h9iCCThBc) \- Verite 

There’s only a shadow of me

In a manner of speaking, I’m dead

[VA benefits for US Army Veterans](http://americanveteransaid.com/newblog/va-benefits-for-wwii-u-s-army-veterans/)

[Disabled American Veterans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disabled_American_Veterans)

[Disability History](https://www.nps.gov/articles/disabilityhistorymilitary.htm)

[Pensions for veterans](https://www.history.com/news/veterans-affairs-history-va-pension-facts)

[Finding disabled veterans in history chapter](https://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/2017-08/veterans_history.pdf)

[War and military mental health](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2089086/)

[The emotions of war](https://www.pbs.org/tpt/going-to-war/themes/combat-experience/)

[World War II Letters](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/world-war-two-letters/?utm_term=.b0ea6900da67)

[Chronically ill steve rogers](https://historicallyaccuratesteve.tumblr.com/post/90483251181/chronically-ill-steve-rogers)

[Common List of WWII Infantry Weapons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_World_War_II_infantry_weapons)

[Amputee Coalition - Limb Loss Definitions](https://www.amputee-coalition.org/resources/limb-loss-definitions/)

[Self - Limb Differences (10 Things)](https://www.self.com/story/limb-differences)

[Limbs 4 Life - practical coping strategies](https://www.limbs4life.org.au/news-events/news/practical-coping-strategies-to-help-amputees-and-their-families)

[Veterans Administration 1930-1989](https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/015.html)

Slang

  * [Historical slang terms for having sex](https://io9.gizmodo.com/three-timelines-of-slang-terms-for-having-sex-from-135-1608522982?IR=T)


  * [Sex slang throughout history](https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2014/07/71675/sex-slang-history)
  * [A historical dictionary of American Slang](https://www.alphadictionary.com/slang/?term&beginEra=1940&endEra=1950&clean=false&submitsend=Search)
  * [40s Slang](https://1940s.org/history/on-the-homefront/forties-slang-40s)
  * [A history of gay and other queer word](http://rictornorton.co.uk/though23.htm)s



[The history of civil rights](https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement)

[1944 In the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_in_the_United_States)

[American Newspapers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_newspapers)

[On this day in history](https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1944/november)

[Photography using one arm](https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/thread45863.htm)

[Great Gays of the 19th Century](http://rictornorton.co.uk/greatgay/greatga2.htm)

[Coming Out Under Fire](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/gay-and-lesbian-service-members)

[1944 In Television ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_in_television) \- Missus Goes A Shopping was a daytime television game show 

[Food Timeline - Xmas Dinner](http://www.foodtimeline.org/christmasmenu.html)

[Vintage Ad Browser](http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/)

[WWII Cameras](http://www.pastimage.com/ww2-cameras/4555114877)

[The Year Britain Bought Up All The Tea In The World](https://blog.teabox.com/year-britain-bought-tea-world)

[Fashion 1940s](https://vintagedancer.com/1940s/1940s-fashion-history/)

[The struggles of pregnant women in WWII](https://www.babygaga.com/the-struggles-of-pregnant-women-during-world-war-ii-15-pics/)

Po[stage Stamp](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_history_of_the_United_States)s

[The Afternoon Sun by C.P. Cavafy](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51298/the-afternoon-sun)

[Voices of War](https://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/sound-recordings.html)

[Account of WWII soldiers taken by Japanese](https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1944/01/27/joint-army-navy-release-january-27-1944/)

[What was photography like in the 40s Quora](https://www.quora.com/What-was-photography-like-in-the-1940s)

[Photography and processing film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpNrVecT9so&ab_channel=PeriscopeFilm) — [photo paper name](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-name-for-the-photo-paper-that-1940s-50s-photos-are-printed-on)

[1940s photography processing film youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpNrVecT9so&ab_channel=PeriscopeFilm)

[Dark Room Setup 1940s](https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/cost-of-a-darkroom-setup-1940.474779/)

[Letters](https://historyhub.history.gov/thread/4928)

  * [https://www.datalogics.com/blog/pdf-tips/redaction-content-removal-throughout-history/](https://www.datalogics.com/blog/pdf-tips/redaction-content-removal-throughout-history/)
  * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_censorship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_censorship)
  * [https://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_communication_letters_diaries.htm](https://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_communication_letters_diaries.htm)
  * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-mail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-mail)



[Map of New York](http://www.nyclgbtsites.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/OLGAD-1994-Map.pdf)

[Types of intelligence training](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_gathering_disciplines)

[Cameras](http://www.digicamhistory.com/1940s.html)

[Russian Police](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Soviet_secret_police_agencies)

[Russian buildings and events wwii to now](https://www.rbth.com/history/330342-before-after-wwii-moscow)

[Honest Pictures of russia](https://www.boredpanda.com/russia-photography-alexander-petrosyan/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic)

[Pravda NYT Piece](https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/31/world/russia-s-purveyor-of-truth-pravda-dies-after-84-years.html) — [editor 1947](https://www.abebooks.com/photographs/Russia-Moscow-David-Zaslavsky-Editor-newspaper/22870065520/bd)

[Soviet Union Food Consumption Puzzle](https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-food/)

[Russian Ballet Movie](https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/23940-1948-russian-ballet-movie/https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/23940-1948-russian-ballet-movie/)

[Russian Sexual Revolution](https://unherd.com/2020/01/russias-brief-encounter-with-the-sexual-revolution/)

[Homosexuality in Russia 20th Century](https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-homosexuality-in-russia/5134412)

[Izvestnye Tyotki](https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/11872/lgbt-russian-cultural-figures-russia-z)

[Clubs in New Jersey](https://www.facebook.com/groups/bergencountynightlife/permalink/747867241890014/)

[9/11 photos](https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/defining-images-from-the-9-11-attacks-idUSRTS2Q0UX)

[Long Gone pubs that helped shape 70s NYC](https://www.papermag.com/11-long-gone-publications-that-shaped-70s-nyc-1427575817.html)

[8 LGBTQI Artists You Should Know](https://artsandculture.google.com/story/8-lgbtqi-artists-you-should-know/iQLiswH6mVfoJQ)

[Christopher Street (YouTube video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5bkgJTF0t0&ab_channel=CultureTrip)

[1980s Timeline](https://www.thoughtco.com/1980s-timeline-1779955)

[Why a pomegranate?](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118911/)

[Steve Rogers’s Backpay](https://screenrant.com/captain-america-steve-rogers-army-owes-back-pay/)

[Hydra Uprising](https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/HYDRA_Uprising)

[I’ll Be Seeing You - Bing Crosby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D4-Jc7MIF4&ab_channel=ClassicMoodExperience)

[50 Old Fashioned Insults We Should Bring Back](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/50-old-fashioned-insults-we-should-bring-back/)

Books

  * Spies In the Family - Eva Dillon
  * The Family Romanoff - Candace Fleming
  * Operation Paperclip - Annie Jacobsen
  * The Dead Hand - David Hoffman
  * The Lost Girls Of Paris - Pam Jenoff




End file.
